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FLOTSAM  km  JETSAM. 


A  YACHTSMAN'S  EXPERIENCES  AT 
SEA  AND  ASHORE. 


THOMAS    GIBSOJS"    BOWLES 

MASTER  MABINBB. 


"The  sea's  a  rumbustical  place."— Bill,  Wias. 


NEW  YORK: 

FUNK  &  WAGNALLS,  Publishers, 
10  AND  12  Dey  Street. 


PUBLISHERS*  NOTE  TO   THE  AMERICAN  EDITION. 


Several  changes  have  been  made  in  this  edition  of  "  Flotsam  and 
Jetsam  "  upon  the  English  edition  ;  the  most  important  of  which  is 
the  addition  of  a  full  Index.     The  English  edition  contains  no  Index. 

New  Yobe,  March  1,  1883 


CopyrigW,  1883,  by  Funk  &  Wagnalls,  New  York. 


PKEFAOE. 


I  DO  not  pretend  to  be  a  sailor — none  but  a  sailor  knows  how 
much  that  word  means — but  I  love  the  Sea.  From  my  boy- 
hood (I  once  ran  away  to  go  to  sea,  but  was  captured  and 
ignominiously  brought  back  when  well  on  my  way  to  Liver- 
pool) I  have  sought  to  learn  sea-lore  ;  and  I  have  now  learned 
how  little  I  know  of  it.  But  seafaring  has  become,  and  still 
is,  to  me,  a  school,  a  consolation,  and  a  refuge  from  the 
trivialities,  the  meannesses,  and  the  confusions  of  land  life. 
The  grand,  solemn,  serious  Sea,  so  exacting  yet  so  loving,  so 
remorseless  yet  so  kindly,  always  reminds  me — sometimes 
when  I  have  well-nigh  forgotten  it — that  there  are  real  things 
in  the  world  as  well  as  unreal  phrases  ;  plain  duties  as  well  as 
doubtful  opinions  ;  proved  methods  as  well  as  shifting  specu- 
lations, philosophies,  and  policies. 

So  it  is  that  these  writings  arose,  I  did  not  set  out  to 
make  a  boot,  I  did  think  these  thoughts,  such  as  they  are, 
and  see  these  things,  and  simply  set  them  down  as  they  came 
to  me.  They  are  not  mere  inventions  ;  they  are  the  expression 
of  what  was  struck  out  of  me  in  the  conflict  between  the  reali- 
ties of  the  Sea  and  the  fancies  of  the  shore.  This  is  my  only 
excuse  for  them. 

T.  G.  B. 
Cleeve  Lodge,  Hyde  Park  Gate,  London. 


FLOTSAM  AND   JETSAM. 


FLOTSAM. 


CHAPTER  I. 

On  Board  the  Billy  Baby, 

CowES,  8th  May,  1874. 

A  REAL  man  is  always  alone  in  the  world.  Were  he  not  he 
would  not  be  a  real  man,  as  I  understand  it — that  is  to  say,  a 
distinct  entity,  not  a  copy  of  all  other  men,  but  with  the  prin- 
cipal and  important  part  of  him  thoroughly  belonging  to  him- 
self. How  shall  such  a  one  find  a  mate  who  shall  really  be 
such  to  him  ?  Pieces  of  looking-glass  indeed  he  may  find, 
which  will  according  to  their  quality  more  or  less  reproduce 
the  outside  of  him  as  they  will  of  any  other — they  have  been 
quicksilvered  to  that  one  end  ;  but  a  duplicate  of  himself  ; 
nay,  or  another  at  all  like  himself,  he  may  not  hope  for  in  man 
or  woman.  For  his  especial  character  is  that  he  is  what  he 
himself  and  Providence  have  made  him  ;  that  he  has  set  up 
in  the  chaos  with  infinite  labor  and  good  fortune  a  little  plat- 
form of  his  own  just  broad  enough  for  the  sole  of  his  foot. 
Another  cannot  stand  there  with  him,  though  many  be  above 
and  some  perhaps  below.  If  he  be  the  real  man,  that  place  is 
his  and  his  alone  :  he  is  a  separate  being  and  principle,  and  as 
such  he  can  have  no  companion. 

This  is  no  part  of  my  story — or  of  my  notes,  or  whatever 


6  FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM. 

fonn  this  writing  may  take,  for  I  have  not  yet  made  its  ac- 
quaintance— but  merely  a  reflection  on  John  Stuart  Mill's 
autobiography,  which  I  read  coming  down  in  the  train.  He 
thought  he  had  found  a  mate,  and  labors  touchingly  to  prove 
her  such  ;  but  to  my  mind  he  fails  as  touchingly.  Only  I  was 
struck  by  the  fact  that  he  who  was  a  great  man,  and  I  who 
am  a  little  one,  have  both  come  very  independently  to  the  same 
conclusion — that  for  any  man,  great  or  little,  it  is  at  least  im- 
possible to  find  companionship  there  where  most  usually  it  is 
sought.  **  There  is,"  he  says,  "an  inclination  natural  to 
thinking"  (and  he  might  have  added,  to  unthinking)  '*  persons 
when  the  age  of  boyish  vanity  is  once  past  for  limiting  their 
own  society  to  a  very  few  persons.  General  society  as  now 
carried  on  in  England  is  so  insipid  an  affair,  even  to  the  persons 
who  make  it  what  it  is,  that  it  is  kept  up  for  any  reason  rather 
than  the  pleasure  it  affords,"  To  me,  who  was  then  on  my 
way  to  limit  my  own  society  to  three  North  Sea  fishermen,  this 
was  very  satisfactory,  and  I  settled  once  for  all  that  Mill  was  at 
any  rate  a  social  observer,  if  not  a  social  philosopher. 

"  The  society  of  three  North  Sea  fishermen,  indeed  !"  I 
think  I  hear  some  refined  one  exclaim.  Yes,  indeed,  the 
society  of  three  North  Sea  fishermen — of  three  men  who  have 
passed  their  lives  among  stern  realities,  who  are  ready  and 
brave,  true  and  intelligent,  and  who  have  not  been  demoralized 
by  a  daily  consumption  of  platitude  and  sophistry.  Not  from 
Cowes  are  they,  nor  like  the  men  of  Cowes,  who  have  been 
demoralized  thus  and  by  other  means,  but  fresh  from  the 
Dogger,  with  all  their  rough  honesty  upon  them.  If  I  were  in 
London  I  should  be  in  contact  with  A  and  B  and  C,  notorious 
and  self -admitted  imitations  of  a  dishonest  ideal.  Are  these 
not  much  better  than  they  ?  Yes,  indeed  ;  and  I  am  mistaken 
if  they  do  not  leave  me  purer  and  higher  notions  of  society 
than  any  one  of  my  three  Londonners,  infinitely  superior  per- 
sons though  they  be  as  the  common  scale  of  comparison  goes.  " 

IJC  ^S  ^  ^  ilS  tT 

Why  on  earth  will  this  stove  not  bum  ?     I  need  it  badly 


FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM.  7 

enough,  Heaven  knows,  for  it  is  as  cold  to-night  as  the  face  of 
a  great  lady  ;  and  the  mere  run  hither  down  from  Southamp- 
ton through  the  murk  of  the  evening  has  chilled  me  to  the 
bone. 

And  withal  somebody  must  have  run  down  the  Spit  buoy 
again,  for  though  I  never  went  close  to  its  proper  place,  and 
saw  all  the  other  buoys,  we  none  of  us  made  this. 

But  I  remember  that  I  have  not  yet  given  an  account  of  my- 
self and  of  these  notes.  I  came  down  in  the  train  with  three 
strangers.  One  of  them  offered  me  a  light,  and  said  it  was  a 
fine  day.  That  was  not  true,  and  if  it  had  been  true  would 
not  have  been  important.  Nor  would  it  have  been  more  true 
or  more  important  if  I  had  known  whither  that  man  was  going, 
and  what  his  portmanteau  contained.  Yet  these  are  the  first 
questions  people  seem  determined  always  to  ask  and  to  answer 
any  man,  instead  of  the  last  as  they  should  be. 

How  can  I  say  who  or  what  in  the  world  I  am  ?  I  don't 
know — do  you  ?  You  have  no  doubt  a  form  of  words  ready 
on  your  lips — "  M  or  N,  as  the  case  may  be";  but  words  with- 
out ideas  are  mere  abattis,  trees  without  root ;  of  no  further 
consequence  until  they  have  been  converted  into  the  form  of 
some  new  idea. 

Certainly  I  am  not  a  hero.  Yet  I  am  going,  so  far  as  I  see, 
to  talk  of  myself,  which  is,  in  fact,  what  we  all  always  do, 
whether  we  know  it  or  not.  A  very  impertinent  habit,  no 
doubt,  and  quite  indefensible  ;  and  yet  at  the  end  of  the  ac- 
count, as  the  French  say,  what  you  and  I  most  want  to  get  at 
is  a  notion  of  me  and  of  you,  which  is  also  what  we  get  at,  or 
even  near,  the  least  often.  Otherwise  we  should  perhaps  hate, 
envy,  and  despise  each  other  less  than  we  do.  Just  think  of 
the  force  of  human  sympathy.  Any  man  who  gets  up  at 
Charing  Cross,  and  opens  his  mouth,  will  have  a  crowd  of 
people  about  him  before  he  has  said  two  sentences  ! 
«  4c  4:  «  :^  « 


8  FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM. 

Poole,  Saturday,  9th  May,  1874. 

Ah  !  it  was  a  lovely  sunrise  this  morning  for  those  of  us  who 

saw  it,  and  the  outline  of  land  and  sea,  of  mast  and  rigging, 

pencilled  themselves  softly  on  the  gray  sky  as  the  light  stole 

after  us  down  the  Solent.     And  to  think  that  there  are  people 

who  live  in  houses,  and  lie  abed  of  a  morning  1 

****** 

I  remember  there  was  once  a  man  who  invented  the  principle 
of  self-interest  as  sufficient  for  all  mankind  all  through  life. 
Jeremy,  thou  wast  a  noodle.  Didst  thou  not  see,  dost  thou 
not  now  see,  that  we  are  all  of  necessity  mere  trustees  ?  Here 
is  Ned,  for  instance,  roused  up  at  three  this  morning,  and  now 
striving  all  he  knows  to  make  out  that  black  buoy.  Yes,  I  do 
pay  him  a  salary,  and  as  between  us  it  may  seem  at  first  a  mere 
a£fair  of  self-interest.  But  is  he  not  a  trustee  for  his  old 
mother  at  Aldeburgh,  to  whom  he  is  going  to  send  a  post- 
office  order  for  one-pound-ten  this  very  day,  and  also  for  his 
young  woman,  whom  he  intends  some  day  to  endow  with  the 
scanty  bliss  of  a  seaman's  marital  attentions — nay,  even  for  the 
fabricator  of  those  sea-boots  and  the  Chinaman  grower  of  that 
tea  which  makes  me  shudder,  but  which  he  gulps  down  scald- 
ing with  so  much  gusto  ?  All  for  self  ?  What,  even  his 
young  woman  ?     Then  self  has  no  longer  a  meaning,  and  we 

are  stumbling  as  usual  over  words. 

****** 

Was  there  ever  such  a  rich,  bountiful,  delightful  climate  as 
this  maligned  one  of  ours  ?  I  know  none,  and  don't  believe 
there  is  any  with  so  inexhaustible  a  play  of  light,  shade,  and 
atmosphere.  Here,  while  I  have  been  looking  from  my  deck 
at  this  decayed,  sordid  town  of  Poole,  have  I  seen  in  ten 
minutes  at  least  half  a  dozen  different  cities  in  it,  each  with  its 
particular  tone  of  beauty,  and  all  various.  They  say  it  is  like 
Venice,  wherein  they  are  wrong,  for  it  is  far  better  and  more 
beautiful  to  look  at,  and  with  far  more,  if  with  other,  beauties 
than  Venice.  Not  to  live  in,  though — nor  to  sit  for  in  Parlia- 
ment— but  just  to  look  at  from  the  deck  of  a  boat. 
****** 


FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM.  9 

How  strangely  the  mind  of  man  is  constituted  !  Here  is 
Bill,  my  equerry-in- waiting,  groom  of  the  chambers,  and 
cordon  bleu,  quite  unable  to  see  that  nothing  will  save  one 
from  losing  all  the  bedclothes  in  the  night  except  tucking  them 
up.  I  have  explained  this  to  Bill,  and  shown  him  how  it  is 
connected  with  the  eternal  laws  of  physics  that  when  a  man 
rolls  about  with  an  unquiet  spirit,  clothes  must  go  if  they  are 
not  tucked  in.  I  suppose  he  intends  it  as  a  hint  to  lie  quiet. 
I  will  take  it  as  such. 


Havre,  Wednesday,  13th  May. 
There  are  two  situations  in  which  a  man  feels  that  he  is  quite 
alone,  and  that  he  can  look  for  help  to  no  human  being  but 
himself.  The  one  is  on  the  back  of  a  runaway  horse,  the 
other  in  command  of  his  vessel  at  sea  when  he  is  running  for  a 
tidal  harbor  in  a  gale  of  wind,  and  finds  he  can't  save  his  tide 
in  and  will  have  a  lee  shore  to  deal  with.  Woe  betide  him  if 
he  dare  not  then  trust  his  own  judgment  !  Woe  betide  him 
indeed  .if  he  cannot  readily  form  new  plans  !  On  the  whole,  I 
think  the  runaway  horse  is  the  better  place  of  the  two.  I  saw 
a  barge  deep  laden  come  out  of  Poole  yesterday,  and  watched 
him  going  up  Channel — I  wonder  how  he  fared  in  the  breeze 
— and  it  was  at  the  time  a  pleasure  to  think  that  we  had  a 
better  craft  under  us  than  he.  Poor  fellow  !  I  dare  say  he 
thinks  just  as  much  of  his  skin  as  I  do  of  mine,  little  as  either 
of  them  is  worth  in  the  general  scheme  of  creation  ! 


The  art  of  the  true  use  of  garlic  is  the  whole  secret  of  taste- 
ful cookery.  Rub  a  crust  of  bread  with  garlic  and  put  it  in 
your  salad,  and  the  whole  thing  at  once  has  a  savor  which 
nothing  else  would  give  it.  And  so  with  men.  I  know  one, 
for  example,  who  would  be  simply  nothing  were  he  not  known 
for  the  profession  of  infidelity  ;  but  having  that,  he  is  supposed 
to  have  a  flavor  of  his  own  and  is  considered  accordingly  ; 


10  FLOTSAM    AND   JETSAM. 

whereas  in  reality  he  has  only  been  rubbed  over  with  other 
men's  garlic. 

****** 
How  hard  it  is  to  do  the  very  smallest  thing  precisely  as  it 
should  be  done  !  Just  go  to  the  very  centre  of  anchors  and 
cordage  and  try  to  get  a  two-hundred  weight  Trotman  and 
ninety  fathom  of  seven-inch  warp.  It  will  make  you  respect 
failures  for  the  rest  of  your  life. 


CHAPTER  II. 

Off  Cape  d'Antifer,  14th  May,  18*14. 
Some  men  are  bom  lucky  and  others  have  luck  thrust  upon 
them.  How  many  of  us  are  there  who  pass  our  lives  in  run- 
ning away  from  our  own  happiness,  and  are  never  overtaken  by 
it  till  both  it  and  we  are  well-nigh  exhausted  !  Lucky  are 
they  who  are  brought  to  book  by  Fortune,  who  get  a  fall  early 
in  the  race,  and  who  are  perforce  compelled  thenceforth  to  go 
limpingly  and  to  give  their  good  angel  a  chance.  A  great 
Grief  has  often  made  a  great  man,  a  little  grief  has  still  more 
often  made  a  little  one  completely  to  fulfil  that  purpose  in  his 
existence  which  else  he  would  have  missed.  Solomon  was  a 
wise  man,  yet  it  took  him  a  long  life  and  seven  hundred  wives 
to  find  out  that  there  is  nothing  worth  doing  but  to  eat,  drink, 
and  make  love,  and  enjoy  the  fruits  of  one's  labor.  Some  of 
us  unwise  ones  must  indeed  have  had  our  luck  thrust  upon  us 
to  find  it  out  while  we  could  still  do  all  these  things.  A 
splendid  summer  day,  wooing  the  very  coat  off  your  back  and 
the  shoes  off  your  feet,  a  fair  wind,  just  enough  if  it  lasts  to 
take  you  to  your  port,  and  a  dinner  composed  by  the  cunning- 
est  cook  in  Havre,  with  nobody,  not  even  the  postman,  to 
stand  between  you  and  your  wildest  fancies,  these  will  com- 
pare— nay,  they  do  being  now  present  (for  that  is  the  test) 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM.  11 

compare — with  any  kind  of  luck  I  know  in  these  days  ;  and 
certainly  none  of  these  would  have  been  mine  if  I  could  have 
had  my  own  way  say  four  months  ago. 

****** 

The  curse  of  labor  was  a  very  short-sighted  curse  to  inflict 
upon  man,  constituted  as  he  is.  Indeed  it  is  no  curse  at  all ; 
but  rather  the  one  only  blessing  in  life,  the  source  of  all  real 
content  and  the  great  consolation  for  all  sorrows,  and  even  for 
all  worries.  Of  course  one  must  have  work  that  one  can  do, 
but  that  is  a  mere  question  of  choice  in  a  world  where  there  is 
so  much  to  do  of  so  many  various  kinds  ;  and  not  a  difficult 
question  either,  for  almost  anybody  can  do  almost  anything  if 
they  will  but  address  themselves  to  it.  The  choice  once 
made,  what  is  there  to  equal  or  to  come  near  to  the  delight 
there  is  in  grappling  with  the  work  ;  what  moments  are  there 
like  those  when,  bracing  your  nerves  and  setting  your  teeth, 
you  rejoice  as  a  giant  refreshed,  to  run  the  race  before  you 
and  feel  the  distance  disappearing  beneath  your  feet  ?  Not  the 
triumph  of  the  victory,  still  less  the  repose  on  the  other  side 
the  goal — for  that  is  but  a  kind  of  death  between  the  races  in 
which  alone  you  feel  that  you  really  live.  I  can  understand 
those  who  work  for  the  sake  of  the  work,  I  can't  understand 
those  who  work  for  the  sake  of  the  rest  that  is  to  follow.  See 
the  man  who  has  *'  retired  from  business"  of  whatever  kind — 
is  not  his  first  act  to  go  into  business  of  another  kind  ?  He 
leaves  selling  cottons  and  takes  to  buying  pictures  and  society. 
What  then  ?  He  has  only  exchanged  a  work  he  could  do  for 
one  he  cannot,  and  he  will  certainly  gain  no  more  but  rather 
much  less  profit  and  glory  in  the  one  than  in  the  other. 

I  am  persuaded  that  this  world  was  organized  for  an  entirely 
diflEerent  set  of  creatures  from  those  who  inhabit  it.  Looking 
at  this  infinite  multitude  of  stars  above  me,  many  of  them  cer- 
tainly, and  all  of  them  possibly,  inhabited,  I  can  well  under- 
stand how  easily  the  wrong  set  of  inhabitants  may  have  got 


12  FLOTSAM   AKD  JETSAM. 

into  our  Planet  by  mistake,  just  as  in  the  old  stage  tnck  of 
putting  the  wrong  letter  in  the  envelope.  "The  only  thing 
that  is  at  all  decently  done  on  earth,"  said  a  great  man  once  to 
me,  "  is  the  coming  of  the  leaves,  which  we  do  at  least  get 
when  we  want  shade  ;  all  the  rest  is  wrong  ;  for  instance,  the 
days  are  long  in  summer  when,  the  sun  being  hot  and  the  night 
pleasant,  they  ought  to  be  short,  while  they  are  short  in  winter 
when  the  sun  is  so  valuable  that  we  want  more,  and  the  night 
so  detestable  that  we  want  less  of  it."  Look  again  at  winds. 
If  they  were  sensibly  arranged  we  should  have  them  blowing 
strongest  on  shore,  where  gales  are  of  no  great  importance, 
while  they  would  always  be  moderate  at  sea,  instead  of  the 
reverse  being  the  case.  Then  there  are  the  tides,  so  arranged 
that  they  run  strongest  when  they  rise  highest,  whereas  it 
would  be  manifestly  better  if  they  were  to  do  so  when  they 
rise  the  least,  because  that  would  give  one  so  much  better  a 
chance  of  getting  into  tidal  harbors. 

The  moral  order  of  things  is  an  old  subject  of  complaint. 
Yet  it  only  needs  one  reform  in  order  to  make  them  perfectly 
easy  of  treatment — that  is  a  means  of  comparing  moral  capac- 
ity. For  then  we  should  have  nothing  more  to  do  than  to  say 
that  every  man  shall  have  all  the  enjoyment  he  is  capable  of 
containing,  but  that  he  shall  not  steal  from  other  men's  measures 
that  which  will  not  go  into  his,  but  only  run  over  and  be  abso- 
lutely wasted.  There  is  enough  enjoyment  in  the  world  for  all, 
and  to  spare,  but  your  two-gallon  man  will  get  three,  four,  or 
five  gallons  more  than  can  be  of  any  kind  of  use  to  Mm,  while 
your  one-gallon  man  is  perhaps  empty  altogether. 


Dieppe,  15th  May,  1874. 
Why  it  should  always  blow  half  a  gale  of  wind  right  on  the 
shore  whenever  you  are  waiting  your  tide  to  get  into  these 
French  harbors  is  another  thing  I  should  like  to  know.  The 
only  advantage  I  at  present  see  in  it  is  that  it  keeps  you  up  all 
night  hov-e-to  off  Cape  d'Ailly,  and  furnishes  you  with  the 


FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM.  13 

work  and  excitement  of  furling  half  your  sails  and  double-reef- 
ing the  rest.     Which  illustrates  what  I  have  already  said,  for 
now  we  are  in  I  only  feel  rather  tired  and  bruised  with  our 
knocking  about,  and  have  lost  all  interest  in  the  weather. 
****** 

I  fear  the  French  are  now  at  least  beginning  really  to  experi- 
ence the  effects  of  the  war  upon  their  commerce.  At  Havre  it 
is  impossible  to  get  freight  of  any  kind  for  any  vessels,  and  this 
port  of  Dieppe  has  not  above  five  vessels  in  it  where  usually 
there  are  two  or  three  hundred.  Never  did  a  place  look  so 
utterly  deserted.  I  have  just  had  my  hair  cut  in  order  to  talk 
about  it,  and  this  was  the  conversation  that  took  place  to  a 
running  accompaniment  of  scissor-clicking  : 

"  C'est  qu'on  n'a  pas  de  confiance  dans  la  solidit6  du  Gou- 
vernement,  et  alors  les  affaires  ne  marchent  pas,  comme  mon- 
sieur voit."  * 

**  On  avait  cependant  confiance  dans  1' Empire." 

"  Oh,  pour  9a,  oui." 

"  Et  pourtant  il  n'6tait  pas  bien  solide." 

"  Non,  mais  enfin  on  croyait  tout  de  meme  k  sa  solidity." 

' '  Croyez  done  a  la  solidity  du  Septennat. ' ' 

"  Oh  !  Monsieur  !" 

****** 

A  charming  people  are  these  French.  The  whole  of  the  Hotel 
Royal  turned  out  to  welcome  me  when  I  went  to  dine  there 
yesterday,  asked  me  affectionately  all  round  after  my  health 
and  my  doings,  and  provided  me  with  a  sauce  Hollandaise, 

*  "When  people  have  no  confidence  in  the  strei^h  of  the  Gov- 
ernment, then  affairs  do  not  get  along,  as  monsieur  sees." 

"Yet  they  had  confidence  in  the  Empire." 

"As  for  that,  yes." 

"And  nevertheless  it  was  not  very  solid." 

"No,  but  upon  the  whole  people  did  believe  in  its  strength  all  the 
same." 

"Well,  then,  trust  in  the  stability  of  the  Septennat." 

"Oh,  monsieur!" 


14  FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM. 

which  was  like  eating  the  kingdom  of  joy.  I  remember  an 
old  French  gourmet  once  said  to  me,  "  Jeune  homme,  quand 
vous  aurez  epuise  les  delices  de  I'amour,  des  affaires,  de  la 
politique  et  de  la  religion,  vous  finirez  comme  moi  par  vous 
rabattre  sur  la  cuisine."  I  begin  to  fancy  I  must  have  already 
arrived  at  that  stage. 

«r  «  *  4c  4:  * 

I  never  saw  yet  a  woman  so  ugly  that  her  lover  could  not 
believe  in  her  beauty  ;  but  I  have  seen  one  to-day  so  ugly 
that  I  doubt  if  she  can  believe  in  her  own.  I  have  loved 
many  women,  but  never  a  beautiful  one  in  all  my  life,  and  yet 
I  have  for  the  time  always  believed  each  to  be  the  only  one  of 
fier  sex. 


CHAPTER  III. 

On  Board  the  Billy  Baby, 

Dieppe,  May  19th. 
We  ought  to  be  very  grateful  to  Providence  for  having  im- 
planted in  each  one  of  us  that  admirable  conviction  that  /  am 
the  centre  of  the  universe.  If  we,  any  of  us,  really  believed 
that  the  world  went  round  the  sun  instead  of  the  sun  going 
round  the  world,  or  that  we  went  round  the  world  instead  of 
the  world  going  round  us,  life  would  be  unendurable.  As  it 
is,  all  men  and  things  are  instruments  and  playthings  for  each 
one,  even  the  most  mean  of  us.  I  am  not  more  intimately 
convinced  that  Bill  was  invented  for  my  service  than  Bill  is 
convinced  that  I  was  invented  for  his  ;  and  he  is  right.  I 
can't  escape  from  revolving  round  Bill,  and  in  all  our  dealings 
I  am  forced  to  feel  his  attraction  and  repulsion  just  as  with  all 
other  bodies  heavenly  and  earthly.  His  notions  of  making 
beds  and  coffee  are  my  masters,  and  I  have  at  last  finally  sub- 
mitted to  them  ;  yet  he  has  adopted  ray  notion  of  brushing 
clothes  and  boots  in  part,  and  on  the  question  of  table  napkins 


FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM.  15 

and  clean  knives  and  forks  we  act  with  about  equal  force  on 

each  other.     So  that  Bill  is  now  so  far  reduced  as  it  were  to 

the  position  of  a  mean  sun,  which  is  never  quite  in  its  right 

place,  but  which  must  be  supposed  to  be  there  for  practical 

purposes. 

****** 

Shoreham,  21st  May,  1874. 
I  wonder  why  in  pictures  of  vessels  at  sea  they  are  almost 
always  represented  as  under  full  sail,  with  a  fair  breeze.  In 
reality  they  should  be  represented  close-hauled  in  a  gale  of 
wind,  beating  up  for  port  against  a  head  sea.  It  is  a  fine  feel- 
ing to  be  proud  of  something,  and  I  was  proud  of  the  Billy 
Baby  last  night  when  I  saw  her  stripped  like  an  athlete  for  the 
struggle,  with  siorm  jib,  close-reefed  mainsail,  topmast  struck, 
bowsprit  reefed,  and  all  snug,  and  felt  her  flying  along  under 
me  within  four  points  of  that  cruel  north-easter — while  my 
crockery  was  equally  flying  about  the  cabin  below.  Truly 
those  that  go  down  to  the  sea  in  ships,  that  do  business  in 
great  waters — these  see  the  works  of  the  Lord  and  his  wonders 
in  the  deep.  And  it  was  a  wonder,  indeed,  to  note  the  first 
red  streaks  of  morn  away  to  the  north-east,  and  to  see  them 
grow  into  the  blessed  light  of  day.  A  beautiful  and  lovable 
world  indeed  if  people  would  only  come  to  the  right  places 

in  it. 

****** 

The  Billy  Baby  lies  ignobly  on  her  bilge  inside  the  harbor,  a 
scorn  and  a  rebuke  to  the  inhabitants  of  Shoreham,  and  pro- 
voking even  the  reflections  of  the  cheap  butcher  who  has  come 
down  to  sell  his  joints  by  the  sound  of  trumpet,  forgetting 
that  he  too  has  a  soul  to  be  saved.  For  even  Ned  is  but 
human,  and  turning  up  this  narrow  and,  to  all  of  us,  unknown 
passage,  he  ran  her  ashore  at  four  o'clock  this  morning.  It 
should  be  a  warning  to  every  one  never  to  go  into  strange  places 
on  a  falling  tide  without  a  pilot — even  when  it  is  impossible  to 
get  one.  It  matters  little  ;  the  next  tide  will  take  us  off, 
though  at  present  there  isn't  a  teacupful  of  water  in  the  harbor 


16  FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM. 

— and  after  all  you  must  be  somewhere.     I  know  people  who 
are  in  bed  at  this  moment. 

****** 

There  are  things  that  would  have  been  too  much  for  the 
apostle  John.  Here  is  one  such.  When  in  Paris  on  Tuesday, 
I  provided  myself  with  a  bunch  of  asparagus  as  big  as  a  five- 
inch  cable,  and  brought  it  down  triumphantly  to  Dieppe  for  a 
Billy  Baby  dinner.  Moreover,  I  got  particular  instructions 
from  my  valued  friend  Henri  of  the  Cafe  Bignon  how  to  cook 
it.  Now  yesterday,  struggling  as  we  were  with  half  a  gale  of 
wind,  I,  of  course,  could  not  dine  at  all  to  make  any  sense  of 
it ;  but  to-day,  lying  tranquilly  at  the  end  of  the  Shoreham 
canal,  within  two  miles  of  Brighton,  I  thought  of  my  aspara- 
gus, and  retailed  to  Bill  all  Henri's  instructions  as  to  its  treat- 
ment, the  prominent  one  of  which  was  that  it  was  to  be  lightly 
scraped  before  cooking.  And  now  will  anybody  imagine  my 
dismay  to  find  that  Bill,  being  ignorant  of  the  ways  and  quali- 
ties of  "  grass,"  has  scraped  away  all  the  heads,  and  cooked 
nothing  but  the  white  stalks  !     I  feel  as  if  I  had  lost  a  day. 

*  ***** 

The  only  revelation  we  have  of  things  unseen  must  be  such 
as  we  can  derive  through  reasoning  by  analogy  from  things 
that  are  seen.  Let  us  leave  Invention  and  learn  from  Experi- 
ence. Thus  doing  we  shall  soon  see  that  Thought  at  least  is 
eternal.  No  idea  ever  dies.  It  may  be  thrown  into  the  air, 
but  the  very  winds  will  take  it  and  plant  it,  maybe  in  a  far  dis- 
tant soil,  to  germ  and  grow  into  a  tree,  in  the  branches  of  which 
the  birds  of  the  air  shall  lodge,  and  the  trunk  of  which  some 
day  a  workman  shall  take  and  make  one  half  of  it  into  a  god 
to  fall  down  and  worship,  and  with  the  other  half  shall  kindle 
a  fire.  Neither  is  an  idea  ever  born.  Create  it  you  cannot. 
You  take  other  ideas,  and  by  their  apposition  you  build  up  out 
of  them  what  you  call  another  and  a  new  one.  Alas  !  no,  it  is 
not  given  to  you.  You  will  find  that  same  idea  in  David  or 
in  Solomon,  or  else  it  is  in  the  Vedas,  in  the  Koran,  in  Socra- 


FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM.  17 

tes,  or  Plato.  Nor  was  it  new  when  they  gave  it  a  form.  It 
came  to  them  as  the  sun  comes,  first  indeed  to  those  who  ear- 
liest rise,  but  sooner  or  later  to  all.  It  rose  upon  them  as  it 
has  to-day  risen  upon  you,  as  to-morow  it  will  rise  on  some 
other,  and  so  to  the  end  of  time — which  is  the  end  of  eternity, 

****** 

Portslade-by-Sea,  25th  May. 

There  is  an  idea  which  has  been  faced  and  accepted,  adopted 
and  propagated  by  all  writers  on  civil  organization  from  the 
greatest  to  the  least,  and  which  I  am  yet  presumptuous  enough 
to  think  absolutely  false.  It  is  this,  that  man  in  a  state  of 
nature  is  an  animal  utterly  lawless  and  utterly  solitary,  a  naked 
brute  without  a  moral  sentiment  to  clothe  his  immaterial,  or  a 
rag  to  cover  his  material  nakedness,  having  no  fellow-man  in 
any  kind  of  relation  to  him.  It  seems  to  me  that  that  is,  on 
the  contrary,  a  conception  of  man  in  a  purely  unnatural  state  : 
for  the  first  impulse  of  his  nature  is  to  clothe  himself  with  a 
companion — even  if  it  be  but  a  woman — his  spirit  with  an 
idea  ;  his  body  with  a  covering  ;  and  his  actions  with  a  rule. 
Before  he  has  done  this  he  has  not  yet  followed  the  imperious 
dictates  of  his  nature  ;  when  he  has  done  it  he  no  more  ceases 
to  be  in  a  state  of  nature  than  an  oak  does  because  it  was  once 
an  acorn,  or  than  a  swallow  when  it  has  built  itself  a  nest,  and 
flies  away  on  its  first  winter  journey  to  warmer  climes.  Find 
me  a  man  placed  on  the  earth,  an  acorn  under  it,  or  a  swallow 
above  it,  content  to  remain  as  they  are,  and  I  will  admit  that 
the  state  of  nature  is  a  state  preceding  the  effort  to  follow  the 
dictates  of  nature.     Till  then,  never. 

This  then  being  so,  what  becomes  of  all  the  elaborate  theo- 
ries and  systems  of  polity  and  economy  that  have  been  built  on 
the  erroneous  notion  I  have  cited  ?  What  becomes  of  the 
materialist  and  the  self-interested  conceptions  (however  modi- 
fied by  "  enlightenment"),  all  these  being  founded  on  the  as- 
sertion that  all  law,  all  society,  all  intellectual  or  moral  motions 
of  man  are  mere  human  inventions,  ingeniously  and  for  a  pur- 


18  FLOTSAM   AND  JETSAM. 

pose  embroidered  on  to  the  original  man  of  whom  they  formed 
no  part  ?  Why,  they  disappear,  are  extinguished,  condemned, 
lost  and  gone  forever.  Let  us  more  rationally — jes,  more 
rationally — believe  that  man  in  a  state  of  nature  would  be  in  a 
state  of  perfect  sociability,  ideality,  and  Law,  and  that  he  falls 
short  of  that  only  because  he  is  so  far  not  in  a  state  of  nature. 
****** 

When  you  see  a  man  drowning  before  you,  do  you  hold  that 
you  have  done  your  whole  duty  to  him  because  you  have  paid 
your  yearly  subscription  to  the  Humane  Society  ?  I  trow  not. 
And  now  about  the  poor.  Shall  we  say  when  the  wretched 
cries  for  alms,  that  we  have  paid  our  poor-rates  ?  Are  we  to 
reply  that  his  claim  to  a  living  share  of  the  earth's  fruits  is  a 
claim  on  the  whole  of  society,  and  that  we  have  discharged  our 
quota  ?  Not  so.  I  admit  that  this  man  who  has  done  a  day's 
work,  and  created  for  me  a  slight  commodity,  has  a  claim  on 
me  for  his  wage.  Yet  he  has  a  claim  only  on  me,  for  the  com- 
modity is  for  my  own  sole  use.  Shall  I  then  refuse  him  whose 
claim  is  not  only  upon  me  but  upon  all  my  fellows  as  well  ?  If 
so,  I  declare  society  bankrupt  along  with  myself. 

****** 

To-day  is  Whit-Monday,  and  I  see  a  string  of  seven  om- 
nibuses filled  with  people  vulgar,  and  probably  imperfectly 
washed,  jaunting  along  the  road  on  an  excursion,  the  while 
they  affront  the  air  with  many  various  songs,  having  only  this 
in  common — that  they  are  all  out  of  tune.  Thanks  to  heaven 
I  do  not  know  them,  and  I  can  therefore  rejoice  that  they  in 
their  way  rejoice.  And  now  if  only  one  of  them,  through  the 
sight  of  new  objects,  shall  get  an  idea  into  his  or  her  head,  if 
merely  that  cornet-player  shall  discern  dimly  the  harmonies  of 
these  dark  piles  planted  in  the  blue  water,  of  these  yellow  masses 
of  pine  awned  with  soft  gray  sky,  and  crowned  with  fleecy 
chaplets  of  cloud — why  the  day  will  be  a  profitable  one  to  him, 
and  maybe  through  him  to  all  mankind. 


FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM.  19 

I  once  loved  a  woman.  I  held  her  for  the  best,  the  truest, 
the  purest,  and  the  strongest  of  God's  creatures,  and  I  could 
not  endure  to  be  near  her  for  the  doubts  that  arose  every  in- 
stant whether  she  really  were  all  this.  I  love  her  now  no  more. 
I  know  her  for  a  poor  make-believe  ordinary  person  ;  and  now 
her  society  is  just  as  pleasant  to  me  as  that  of  any  other  human 
creature — neither  more  nor  less. 

****** 

This  is  an  ungenerous  world.  Last  night  I  set  my  trammel, 
thinking  to  catch  at  least  a  plate  of  fish  for  breakfast.  This 
morning  I  found  that  somebody  had  hauled  it  in  the  night, 
taken  out  all  the  fish,  and  cast  the  net  ashore  on  the  bank.  I 
cannot  approve  of  that.  The  fish  no  doubt  were  as  much  his 
as  mine,  but  considering  that  the  net  was  mine  alone,  he  might 
have  left  me  half  the  take. 


CHAPTER   IV. 

On  Liberty,  June  1. 
Bill  having  given  me  a  week's  leave  to  go  and  see  my  mam- 
ma and  my  young  woman,  I  had  a  good  cry  over  leaving  the 
frigate,  and  took  my  departure  to  be  among  those  incompre- 
hensible people  who  choose  to  live  ashore  when  they  might 
have  a  comfortable  ship  for  half  the  money,  and  little  more  than 
twice  the  trouble.  What  a  strange  twist  this  is  in  men's  minds 
that  makes  them  all  seek  their  pleasure  in  doing  what  they  can't 
do  well,  and  leaving  what  they  can  so  do  as  a  tiresome  busi- 
ness, only  to  be  done  under  dire  compulsion  !  Whether  there 
is  anything  beyond  the  bare  sweeping  of  a  crossing  that  /  can 
do  I  know  not,  but  it  is  clear  to  me  that  at  any  rate  I  Can  never 
be  but  a  very  poor  sailor-man,  and  I  am  anmsed  with  myself 
to  find  that  playing  at  sailors  is  nevertheless  ray  most  cherished 
delectation.  I  am  sure  if  I  only  go  on  long  enough  I  shall 
fancy  myself  quite  a  salt.  What  curious  humbugs  we  all  are  ! 
****** 


20  FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM. 

The  art  of  war  consists  in  knowing  when  to  run  away.  So 
does  the  art  of  life.  For  it  is  always  to  be  remembered  that 
in  battle  both  sides  are  all  the  time  in  a  terrible  fright,  and  that 
the  question  on  which  hangs  the  fate  of  the  day  is  not  which 
side  is  most  brave,  but  which  is  least  frightened.  Therefore  a 
good  general  who  doubts  the  relative  capacity  of  his  troops  to 
stand  fright,  will  judiciously  run  before  he  meets  the  enemy, 
and  while  he  can  still  do  so  under  pretence  of  making  a  scien- 
tific ulterior  combination.  I  once  knew  a  man  who  had  been 
disgracefully  handled  by  a  woman.  He  confided  in  me,  used 
very  strong  and  very  proper  language  as  to  her  baseness,  and 
told  me  that  he  had  taken  steps  to  meet  her  under  circum- 
stances which  would  enable  him  to  show  all  the  contempt  and 
disgust  he  felt  for  her,  and  how  thoroughly  he  had  been  cured 
of  his  deception.  I  advised  him  on  the  contrary  to  run.  He 
would  not,  and  now  he  is  a  married  and  miserable  man. 
*  *  *  *  *  * 

2d  June. 
I  have  seen  a  minster  which  has  made  me  ask  myself  once 
again  how  people  can  believe  the  common  fable  of  the  histori- 
ans that  the  English  were  up  to  two  hundred  years  ago  a  poor, 
uncultivated,  half-savage  people.  This  cathedral  represents  an 
amount  of  wealth,  of  labor,  of  sentiment,  of  loving  art,  and  of 
devotion  which  ten  Englands,  and  the  natives  of  the  Continent 
to  boot,  could  not  produce  in  these  days.  There  are  the 
pulses,  the  sinews,  nay  the  very  heart  and  life  of  thousands  in 
those  aisles,  and  the  whole  soul  of  a  man  in  every  touch  of  the 
chisel  on  those  sculptures.  Are  we  really  richer,  do  we  really 
work  more  effectually,  are  our  aims  higher  and  our  feelings 
stronger  and  purer  than  in  those  so-called  barbarous  times  ? 
Then  let  us  build   but  one  edifice  equal  to  this  and  I  will 

believe  it. 

****** 

I  never  knew    a  single-minded  woman.     Their  ideas   are 
always  married  to  themselves — and  sometimes  polygamously  to  , 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM.  21 

somebody  else  besides.  An  abstract  notion  or  principle  is  quite 
beyond  them.  The  other  morning  going  ashore  to  buy  some 
eggs  for  Bill,  I  asked  the  woman  who  sold  them  if  she  could 
assure  me  that  they  were  fresh-laid.  "  Bless  you,  sir,"  she 
replied,  "  I  wouldn't  sell  them  for  fresh-laid  if  they  wasn't." 
****** 

The  necessity  of  having  in  all  things  an  immutable,  invaria- 
ble standard  that,  can  be  appealed  to,  has  always  been  held  to 
be,  and  is  in  fact,  manifest.  Some  people  believe  in  the  Bible, 
some  in  the  Pope,  some  again  mount  higher  and  believe,  as  it 
were,  through  the  Bible  and  the  Pope,  in  the  Divine  truths  of 
which  they  are  the  exponents.  If  we  would  be  exact,  allow- 
ance must  be  made,  in  every  case  of  exposition  of  higher  law, 
for  the  deviation  of  the  material  instniment.  But  what  if  it  is 
believed  that  there  is  no  deviation  at  all  ?  What  if  the  vessel 
is  navigated  in  that  belief,  and  one  day  it  is  discovered  that  the 
bearings  of  things  are  all  at  sixes  and  sevens  ?  The  other  day, 
to  my  horror,  I  found  I  had  got  Cape  d'Ailly  on  a  bearing  by 
my  hitherto  unsuspected  compass,  which  would  if  it  were  a 
true  bearing  have  put  me  a  couple  of  miles  up  the  country  on 
the  French  land,  whereas  in  fact  I  was  at  sea.  Which  brings 
me  to  this  :  that  it  is  a  thousand  pities  we  cannot  '*  swing" 
the  Bible,  the  Pope,  and  other  great  standards,  jSnd  out,  as  I 
am  about  to  do  with  the  "  Billy  Baby's"  compass,  what  their 
exact  deviation  is  with  their  head  in  any  given  point,  and  so 
make  a  table  of  corrections  for  future  reference. 

****** 

3d  June. 

Never  leave  the  side  of  a  woman  you  love.  In  a  day  she  will 
cease  to  regret  you,  in  two  she  will  replace  you  by  somebody 
else,  in  three  she  will  refuse  to  believe  that  you  exist.  Here 
have  I  been  away  from  Billy  Baby  for  a  week,  and  I  can 
eat  and  drink  as  though  nothing  had  happened. 

****** 

What  strangers  we  all  are  to  each  other  on  the  face  of  this 


22  FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM. 

earth  !  and  how  certain  we  all  are  to  get  credit  precisely  for 
the  qualities  we  do  not  possess,  and  to  be  reproached  with  fail- 
ings from  which  we  are  free  !  How  many  men  are  called  su- 
percilious because  they  are  timid,  ill-mannered  because  they  are 
shy,  ill-natured  because  they  love  their  fellows  too  well  not  to 
seek  to  benefit  them  at  their  own  cost  !  How  many  again  are 
pronounced  generous  because  they  are  selfish,  wise  because  they 
have  stolen  other  men's  ideas,  and  able  because  they  have 
placed  themselves  under  other  men's  conduct  !  I  find  the  peo- 
ple at  the  various  ports  I  put  into  all  call  me  *'  captain" 
already,  and  I  expect  to  end  as  admiral. 

4«  iK  ^  ^  iK  * 

4th  June. 
It  is  always  the  leaders  of  men  who  play  them  false.  It  is 
the  judge  who  perpetrates  injustice,  the  priest  who  invents  im- 
piety, the  minister  who  misgoverns  his  country,  the  popular  as- 
sembly which  betrays  its  choosers.  This  is  inevitable  when  it 
is  a  trade  to  judge,  to  pray,  to  govern,  and  to  talk  ;  for  the 
trader  looks  only  to  the  profit  and  permanence  of  his  trade,  and 
cares  nothing  for  the  wares  he  sells  or  the  customer  who  buys 
them.  You  find  men  to  pass  Adulteration  Acts  to  prevent 
chicory  being  mixed  with  coffee,  sand  with  sugar,  and  water 
with  milk,  yet  the  idea  has  never  been  so  much  as  conceived 
that  it  is  a  fraud  to  mix  profit  with  public  duty.  Nevertheless 
this  is  at  the  bottom  of  all  public  troubles. 

*  *  *  *  *  * 

The  most  delicious,  the  most  fascinating  and  artistic  woman's 
dress  I  ever  saw  was  one  of  which  I  caught  a  glimpse  in  Paris 
lately,  made  of  black  glazed  calico.  It  belonged  to,  or  at  any 
rate  it  was  on,  a  lady  who  was  stepping  out  of  a  brougham  into 
a  shop  in  the  Rue  de  la  Paix.  I  saw  it  but  for  three  moments, 
but  I  shall  never  forget  it.  And  the  most  beautiful  face  and 
figure,  the  most  finished  grace,  the  most  unaffected  wit  and 
frankness,  and  the  best  manners  I  ever  knew  belong  at  this  mo- 
ment to  a  young  lady  who  lives,  we  will  say  in  Nottingham, 


FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM.  23 

and  dresses  on  £20  a  year.  If  slie  were  mine  I  would  make 
her  into  a  company,  advertise  lier,  and  benefit  many  share- 
holders besides  myself.  Being  as  she  is  more  rare  and  precious 
than  many  mines,  I  shall  carefully  say  nothing  about  her  but 
this,  that  the  London  drawing-rooms  are  poor  places  to  look 
for  anything  of  really  superior  kind. 


CHAPTER   V. 

Off  Beacht  Head,  Saturday,  6th  June. 
There  is  a  use  in  everything  no  doubt,  but  I  really  should 
like  to  know  the  practical  use  of  fogs  in  this  well-regulated 
world.  It  is  not  that  I  doubt  their  use,  but  only  that  I  should 
like  to  be  able  to  explain  it  to  the  misbelieving  advocate  of  fine 
clear  weather — such  as  Ned.  This  same  mania  for  explaining 
everything,  the  determination  to  bring  down  every  mystery  of 
the  universe  to  the  level  of  Pinnock's  catechism,  is  probably  at 
the  bottom  of  a  good  half  of  the  blunders  of  mankind.  We 
have  applied  the  universal  rule  of  three  to,  and  made  a  net  re- 
suit  of  profit  and  loss  out  of,  most  things.  Even  religion  is 
captured  and  set  to  work  to  make  the  best  of  both  worlds. 
Are  we  forever  to  pretend  to  seek  out  the  Almighty  to  perfec- 
tion, and  not  believe  in  his  works  till  we  can  measure  them 
with  our  foot-rule,  or  his  laws  till  we  have  written  them  in 
articles  thirty-nine  or  more  ?  Should  we  not  rather  be  content 
to  leave  some  few  things  in  mystery  ?  I  also  could  invent  a 
use  for  fogs  if  I  chose.  I  could  repeat  what  some  wiseacre  has 
invented  as  to  their  causes  in  and  their  influence  on  the  atmos- 
phere. Nobody  would  be  the  wiser,  though  somebody  might 
be  the  more  presumptuous  for  it.  I  prefer  to  rejoice  that  here 
is  one  more  of  the  many  things  I  don't  understand.  It  is  con- 
trary to  my  little  interests  for  the  moment,  since  it  hides  even 
Beachy  Head  light  from  me.     But  the  first  thing  we  have  to 


24  FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM. 

learn — and  this  is  one  thing  the  sea  teaches — is  that  we  are  each 
of  us  utterly  unimportant  atoms  in  the  universe. 


Dover  Bay,  Sunday,  June  Ith. 

My  man  Tom  believes  that  the  right  way  to  land  on  the  beach 
in  a  broken  sea  is  to  pull  the  boat  before  it  as  fast  as  possible, 
and  as  he  gave  me  a  ducking  by  so  doing  to-day,  I  have  been 
explaining  to  him  that  the  right  way  is  to  back  her  against  each 
wave,  so  as  to  keep  her  on  the  outer  or  safe  side  of  each. 
Tom  cannot  receive  this,  being  accustomed  to  get  ashore  at  all 
hazards  as  fast  as  he  can  ;  but  I  have  explained  to  him  that  the 
sea  will  carry  him  there  quite  fast  enough,  and  with  all  the 
more  safety  for  his  pulling  gently  against  it. 

Is  it  not  absurd  to  think  that  we  have  had  rulers  and  govern- 
ors in  whom  men  still  believe  (Lord  Palmerston,  the  overrated, 
was  one),  who  opposed  the  making  of  the  Suez  Canal,  and 
spent  five  times  what  would  have  made  it  in  such  erections  as 
the  Alderney  fortifications,  the  Spithead  forts,  and  the  Martello 
towers  ?  Nay,  have  we  not  still  rulers  and  governors  who  are 
allowed  to  build  ironclads,  to  support  volunteer  corps,  and  to 
maintain  the  Declaration  of  Paris  ?  It  is  charitable  to  suppose 
that  we  have  all  gone  mad.  But  it  is  impossible  to  read  what 
has  been  said  and  written  on  public  affairs  by  the  side  of  what 
is  now  said  and  written  without  being  struck  by  this  immense 
diffei'ence,  that  while  formerly  the  speaker  or  writer  used  the 
language  of  an  authoritative  guide,  he  now  uses  that  of  an  anx- 
ious follower.  Formerly  he  laid  down  principles,  and  insisted 
upon  them  ;  now  he  seeks  a  humor  and  flatters  it.  Then  he 
was  a  stem,  unbending  schoolmaster,  knowing  more  than  his 
scholars,  and  walking  among  them  not  unfrequently  with  the 
rod;  now  he  is  a  flycatcher,  producing  any  one  of  the  various 
catchemaliveos  most  in  vogue.  No  politician  or  writer  ever 
now  sets  himself  to  expose  or  to  oppose  a  false  principle  which 
has  taken  ahold,  or  a  delusion  which  has  any  considerable  num- 
ber of  supporters — for  they  are  not  leaders,  but  mere  venders 


PLOTSAM    AND   JETSAM.  25 

of  themselves  and  their  prints  ;  and  being  so  they  will  supply 
forts,  ironclads,  volunteers,  or  anything  else  that  may  be  de- 
manded by  two  or  three  strong-lunged  lunatics  gathered  to- 
gether. 

I  have  two  Queen  Anne  silver  candlesticks  on  board  with 
me,  just  to  remind  me  that  I  was  born  in  a  civilized  country  ; 
and  they  are  not  without  their  influence  even  on  Bill,  who 
cleans  them  lovingly  in  odd  anchored  moments.  He  puts  them 
on  the  table  with  something  of  veneration  and  respect,  which 
I  am  sure  he  never  felt  for  the  tin  and  brass  of  his  home,  and  al- 
though, I  am  convinced,  he  must  know  that  a  candle  would  give 
just  as  good  a  light  from  those  as  from  these. 

I  cannot  understand  Voltaire's  hatred  for  priests.  I  saw  a 
country  parson  to-day,  and  I  did  not  hate  him  at  all.  I  said 
to  myself,  "  There  is  a  most  respectable  and  useful  man,  if 
only  he  lives  in  his  village,  if  he  succors  the  widow  and  the 
fatherless,  maintains  in  himself  a  local  standard  of  cultivation 
and  refinement,  and  limits  his  preaching  to  an  enforcement  of 
the  decalogue  and  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount. "  Joseph  de 
Maistre  says  there  is  no  religion  absolutely  false,  for  that  every 
one  contains  some  grains  of  eternal  truth.  So  indeed  it  is.  A 
religion  is  in  fact  merely  the  form  under  which  man  has  repro- 
duced and  represented  the  Divine  law  as  he  best  could.  To 
mock  at  it  because  it  is  not  in  all  respects  perfect,  is  as  though 
you  should  mock  at  man  because  he  is  not  divine. 

****** 

It  were  worth  while  to  live  at  sea  were  it  only  to  see  the  sky 
and  the  stars.  To  think  that  each  one  of  them  has  perhaps 
peoples  and  nations,  constitutions  and  ministers,  and  that  to 
you  and  to  me  they  are  all  together  but  one  mere  speck  of  blue 
light  in  the  black  canopy  of  the  heavens  !  Possibly  at  this 
very  moment  some  mariner  sailing  over  the  seas  of  the  pole- 
star  is  taking  an  observation  of  this  planet  of  ours  figuring  in 
his  system  of  constellations  as  the  hind  leg  of  a  donkey  ;  if, 
indeed,  our  existence  has  vet  been  discovered  there.     For  there 


26  FLOTSAM  AND   JETSAM. 

are  stars  which  are  not  even  so  much  as  a  speck  of  blue  light 
to  us,  all  our  telescopes  notwithstanding,  and  notwithstanding, 
too,  that  they  may  be  the  very  bodies  whose  attraction  just 
keeps  us  in  our  balanced  place. 

Some  of  the  men  who  have  the  greatest  influence  upon  the 
history  of  their  country,  and  the  welfare  of  their  race,  own 
names  which  have  never  met  the  eye  of  the  most  inveterate 
newspaper  reader,  I  know  two  or  three  such  whose  existence 
is  only  so  much  as  suspected  by  a  select  few,  who  will  not  be 
found  in  any  biographical  dictionary,  and  who  are  yet  at  this 
moment  moulding  the  destinies  of  Europe. 

****** 

Tuesday,  9th  June. 

Coming  into  the  river  from  the  sea  makes  one  understand 
how  a  shy  man  who  has  always  lived  in  the  country  feels  when 
he  is  one  day  bundled  into  London  society.  Surely  we  shall 
never  be  able  to  move  among  all  these  craft  ;  surely  these  craft 
themselves  are  not  real.  Manifestly  they  are  not  intended  for 
service  of  any  real  kind.  Here  is  a  barge  heavy-laden  with 
hay  down  to  the  water's  edge,  merely  drifting  with  the  tide  ; 
there  is  another  gaudily  decked  with  green  bulwarks,  a  red  til- 
ler, and  a  blue  and  yellow  sprit  ;  here  again  is  a  shoal  of  small 
craft  all  legs  and  wings,  full  of  men  more  carefully  got  up  to 
represent  real  salts  than  if  they  had  passed  their  lives  oflE  Cape 
Horn  ;  and  here  is  a  party  on  a  steamer,  packed  as  close  as 
herrings,  and  supposed  to  be  having  the  greatest  enjoyment. 
Surely  I  have  seen  all  these  things  before  in  London  society. 
Here  is  a  gentleman  in  shirt-sleeves  and  beaver-hat,  leaning 
over  the  tiller  of  a  barge.  As  he  passes  us  he  looks  with  a  con- 
temptuous eye  at  our  too  fishing- boat-like  cut,  and  asks, 
"  Well,  I'm  bio  wed.  Where  did  you  pick  her  up  ?"  This 
also,  I  think,  I  have  heard  before. 

****** 

Greenwich,  Wednesday,  10th  June. 

I  am  anchored  just  opposite  a  celebrated  inn  at  Greenwich. 
It  is  a  lovely  evening.     The  windows  of  the  hotel  are  all  open. 


FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM.  27 

and  I  see  in  them  perhaps  fifty  people  who  all  think  they  have 
been  dining.  Poor  wretches  !  they  don't  even  know  the  differ- 
ence between  that  and  eating.  Some  of  them  may  have  heard 
that  there  is  a  difference,  but  they  believe  it  to  be  solely  in  the 
matter  of  cost,  whereas  it  lies  in  palate  and  in  trouble.  With- 
out these  you  may  eat  whitebait  devilled  in  all  the  colors  of  the 
rainbow,  whiting  pudding,  (what  a  horror  !)  flounder  souches 
and  broils  to  the  end  of  time  ;  but  you  will  not  dine.  With  these 
you  may  linger  over  the  simple  chop  fresh-marked  with  the 
gridiron,  toy  with  an  omelet,  a  couple  of  tomatoes,  a  basket  of 
fresh-gathered  strawberries,  and  end  with  the  only  salad  in 
England  and  the  only  coffee  in  Europe — all  prepared  by  one  to 
whom  such  things  were  as  the  Greek  particles  a  month  ago. 

Yet  there  are  those  poor  people  who  think  they  have  dined, 
and  beneath  them  are  three  naked  little  boys  diving  for  coppers 
which  they  in  the  fulness  of  their  generosity — or  rather  in  the 
generosity  of  their  fulness — throw  out.  Truly  we  are  a  brutal 
people,  we  English. 


CHAPTER   VI. 

Greenwich  Reach,  15th  June. 
To  go  down  the  river  and  back  again,  just  to  pass  rapidly 
through  as  one  passes  through  France  or  Italy,  or  other  such 
low-born  countries,  is  what  many  of  us  have  done,  and  found 
that  there  is  nothing  in  it  beyond  a  number  of  ships  lying  in 
unintelligible  places,  and  doing  unintelligible  things  for  un- 
known purposes,  and  a  large  number  of  dirty  people  not  within 
the  pale  of  humanity.  But  to  live  here,  even  for  a  few  days, 
is  a  very  different  matter.  I  begin  now  to  see  that  the  real 
London,  the  great  throbbing,  restless  energy  which  makes  the 
capital,  and  England  too,  what  they  are,  is  all  on  this  side  of 
London  Bridge.  The  barges  working  up  the  river  with  the 
young  flood,  twenty  of  them  in  this  Reach  all  one  on  top  of 


38  FLOTSAM    AN^D   JETSAM. 

the  other,  yet  never  breaking  an  egg  ;  the  thousand  slender 
wands  that  have  pointed  to  every  zenith  in  the  celestial  con- 
clave, lying  clothed  in  their  cobweb  garment  of  cords  ;  the 
chimneys,  the  clamor,  the  high -pressure  pufiSngs,  the  uncouth 
tide-enslaved  lighters  ;  nay,  even  the  toiler,  even  on  Sunday 
when  the  unfrequent  blacking  is  on  his  monstrous  hobnailed 
pachydermatous  boot,  and  the  paper  collar  and  lavender  tie  are 
round  his  neck  ;  all  these  seem  to  represent  something  far  more 
real,  far  more  satisfactory,  and  far  more  representative  of  the 
better  England  than  that  ostentation  of  purse-proud  servility 
into  which  it  all  passes  through  the  crucible  of  Temple  Bar. 
Yet  most  of  us  know  nothing  of  all  this,  can  see  no  beauty  in 
it,  and  would,  if  we  could,  sink  it  in  the  bottom  of  the  sea,  as 
an  uncouth,  ungainly,  rude  spectacle  to  which  the  finer  sort  of 
mankind  are  not  to  be  brought  at  any  cost. 

How  thoroughly  the  belief — once  so  strong — has  died  out, 
that  Englishmen  are  all  men  of  the  same  nation,  brothers  of  the 
same  family,  bound  to  stick  close  together  against  the  world  if 
need  be  !  We  are  now,  it  appears,  brothers  only  of  those  of 
our  "  class."  The  "  gentlemen"  are  of  one  race,  the  mid- 
dling classes  of  another,  the  working  classes  of  yet  another, 
while  the  women  are  of  no  race  at  all,  but  only  of  that  of  their 
children,  cousins,  and  husband,  or  lieutenant  male,  as  the  case 
may  be.  And  then  the  gentlemen  and  the  other  "  classes" 
make  themselves  up  into  infinite  subdivisions,  each  of  which  is 
as  alien  to  the  other  as  all  are  to  each.  So  that  we  are  all 
strangers  and  enemies  to  each  other  in  the  same  land,  with  no 
sentimental  ties  and  no  recognized  obligations  to  bind  us  to- 
gether, and  a  whole  world  of  interests  to  separate  us,  I  have 
heard  of  a  house  in  that  condition. 

****** 

I  love  to  linger  over  those  old  prints  of  naval  battles  fought 
when  England  could  meet  and  defeat  the  banded  nations  of 
Europe.  Here  is  one  of  them  in  a  gilt  frame,  stained  and 
soiled,  a  wreck  probably  from  some  master  mariner's  household 
goods,  hanging  in  an  old  clothes  shop — a  crowded,  highly- 


FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM.  29 

wrought  engraving,  defective  in  many  points  of  art,  but  stirring 
the  blood  nevertheless.  A  principal  figure  in  it  is  that  of  a 
sailor  nailing  his  ship's  colors  to  the  stump  of  the  mast  while 
he  is  shot  at  by  a  hundred  of  the  enemy's  small-arm  men. 

So  even  this  most  magnificent  and  moving  pile  of  Greenwich 
has  been  taken  away  from  the  poor  sailor,  who  was  to  spend  his 
old  age  in  it  to  all  time  according  to  the  intent  of  its  founders, 
and  has  been  made  into  a  college  for  the  richer  naval  officer. 
The  perpetual  old  shameful  tale  of  taking  from  him  that  hath 
not  and  giving  to  him  that  hath.  Thus  did  they  three  hundred 
years  ago  with  those  lands  of  the  Church  which  had  equally 
been  set  apart  forever  to  the  pious  uses  of  God  and  the  poor. 
I  wonder  who  has  fingered  all  the  rich  Greenwich  endowments, 
shares,  parts  of  prize-money,  and  others.  I  know  we  are  told 
that  the  poor  sailor  is  to  have  a  money-pension  given  to  him  in 
lieu  of  his  palace-home,  just  as  the  other  poor  have  had  indoor 
and  outdoor  relief  in  lieu  of  their  own  property  and  inherit- 
ance. But  what  is  to  replace  that  feeling  that  every  English 
seaman  who  sailed  up  the  Thames  once  had  that  here  was  his 
home,  here  in  this  most  splendid  shape  the  expression  of  the 
great  value  a  great  nation  set  upon  his  services  ? 


Tuesday,  16th  June. 
*'  What  the  gridiron  do  you  mean  by  running  into  me  ?" 
**  Ask  my  mamma,  you  friend  of  mankind — you  should  get 
out  of  the  way." 

Such  is  the  account,  so  far  as  words  go,  of  an  interview  I 
had  this  morning  with  a  professor  of  navigation  in  charge  of  a 
barge  laden  with  hay.  He  had  run  into  me  with  all  his 
weight,  and  the  strength  of  a  spring  tide,  thrown  me  from  one 
end  of  my  cabin  to  the  other,  and  startled  me  out  of  a  peaceful 
calculation  of  azimuth  on  to  the  deck.  Beyond  this,  and 
knocking  off  a  piece  of  copper  as  large  as  Mr.  Gladstone's  in- 
tellect, he  had  done  me  no  harm  ;  in  fact  he  had  rendered  me 
a  service,  for  he  gave  me  an  excuse  for  feeling  injured  and 


30  FLOTSAM   AND  JETSAM. 

being  angry  for  five  minutes — which  is  one  of  the  greatest  hix- 
uries  I  know. 

Once  there  was  a  man — ^not  indeed  once  only,  for  the  adven- 
ture is  being  daily  renewed — who  suddenly  became  aware  that 
his  friend  was  a  traitor,  and  his  sweetheart  a  jilt.  He  com- 
plained bitterly,  declared  that  there  never  was  an  injury  like 
his,  and  swore  that  he  must  die  without  remedy.  Yet  if  you 
look  him  over  now,  but  five  minutes  as  it  were  after  the  shock, 
you  will  find  it  hard  to  discover  where  he  has  even  had  a  rub 
of  his  paint. 

****** 

Thursday,  18th  June. 

If  my  eye  really  were  at  the  surface  of  the  sea  my  rail  would 
appear  far  higher  than  it  now  does,  and  the  sun  lower  ;  so  that 
this  correction  for  Dip  by  which  I  bring  my  sun  a  few  seconds 
lower  than  I  observe  him  from  the  deck,  is  in  truth  a  testi- 
mony to  the  fact  that  he  is  higher  than  my  rail,  as  it  is  also  a 
proof  that  as  one  enlarges  one's  horizon,  that  which  is  in  itself 
low  appears  lower,  while  that  which  is  really  high  appears 
higher. 

A  graceless  Frenchman  once  said  :  ' '  Les  grands  ne  nous  par- 
aissent  grands  que  parce  que  nous  sommes  A  genoux — levons 
nous  !"  *  Whereby  he  meant  not  the  truly  but  the  apparent 
great. 

Once  I  knew  a  bald  man,  a  man  in  public  life,  who  was  too 
old  and  too  wise  for  words,  very  far  removed  from  my  time, 
and  for  whom  I  felt  the  respect  one  entertains  for  the  genera- 
tion- of  fathers  and  uncles  possessed  of  infinite  wisdom  and 
knowledge.  I  remember  I  was  quite  astounded  when  he  mar- 
ried, and  thought  it  hard  on  his  wife.  Now  that  a  few  years 
have  passed  I  have  become  aware  that  he  is  not  old  at  all,  but 
of  a  mere  decent  and  reasonable  age,  which  quite  entitles  him 
to  give  his  own  name  to  his  children.     Moreover  I  have  no 

*  The  great  appear  to  us  great  because  we  are  kneeling — let  us  rise. 


FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM.  31 

longer  the  slightest  respect — but  contrariwise,  a  great  contempt 
— for  his  public  self  and  work. 

I  knew  also,  at  the  same  time,  a  thinker,  who  seemed  to  me 
superior  certainly  to  most  men,  but  not  so  very  greatly  supe- 
rior. He  has  now  so  risen  in  my  estimate  that  I  open  the  rec- 
ords of  his  thought  with  fear  and  trembling  lest  I  fail  to  seize  it. 

****** 

Reading  a  law  case  of  the  time  of  Edward  I.,  I  find  that  be- 
fore the  Conquest  one  Hugh  de  Longchamp — ' '  tient  play  de  la 
coronne,  e  aveit  fourges,  et  prit  redempcion  de  genz  a  la  mort 
juges,  par  reson  deu  maner^'  had  pleas  of  the  Crown,  and  had 
gallows,  and  took  ransom  of  men  condemned  to  death,  by  rea- 
son of  his  manor. 

Is  it  not  strange  that  men  should  be  found  who  can  amass  a 
fortune  out  of  the  blood  and  bone  of  their  fellows,  and  who 
yet  thoroughly  believe  that  they  have  no  duties  to  fulfil  tow- 
ard them  ?  I  know  a  good  dozen  who,  finding  themselves 
in  a  strong  capitalist  castle,  have  taken  from  hundreds — nay, 
from  thousands — that  lifetime  of  toil,  which  is  all  the  toiler's 
wealth,  and  who  will  calmly  stand  by  and  see  the  executioner 
Hunger  step  in  to  make  an  end  of  what  little  life  there  is  left 
in  them — answering,  if  they  be  questioned,  that  the  right  of 
grace,  if  anywhere,  is  in  the  master  of  the  workhouse. 
Surely,  this  is  breaking  the  bargain. 

****** 

The  Thames  Conservancy  have  a  way  of  punishing  an  offend- 
ing master  of  a  barge  by  taking  a  cloth  out  of  his  mainsail, 
which  is  to  that  extent  a  diminution  of  his  sailing-power,  and 
consequently  of  his  profits,  always  felt.  One  passed  me  to- 
day who  had  scarcely  any  mainsail  left — evidently  a  hardened 
sinner  of  some  kind. 

The  Jews  are  the  most  persuasive  race  in  the  world,  and  I 
fancy  that  when  King  John  pulled  their  teeth  out  one  after  the 
other,  on  their  refusal  to  part  with  their  moneys,  it  was  in  or- 
der to  diminish  the  seductive   flow  of  their  speech,     What 


32  FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM. 

now  if  we  should  take  to  that  again  ?  What  if  we  were  to 
draw  a  tooth  from  every  minister  convicted,  in  the  usual  way, 
by  a  majority  of  the  Commons,  of  having  ill-administered  his 
country's  aflEairs  ?  That  would  in  some  measure  replace  the 
rusty  old  weapon  of  impeachment  at  which  everybody  laughs 
nowadays.  For  it  is  no  longer  held  to  be  a  crime  in  a  man  to 
betray  his  country  for  the  sake  of  his  "  party  " — which  is  the 
modern  word  for  himself. 


To  have  the  sky  for  your  only  philosopher — to  be  read  as 
you  may  be  able  to  read  it — the  sun,  moon,  and  stars  for  your 
only  guides,  and  the  sea  for  your  only  companion,  is  of  all 
things  the  most  delicious  when  the  sky  writes  fair  weather  in 
plain  characters,  when  the  sun  and  the  moon  and  the  stars  tell 
you  clearly  where  you  are,  and  when  the  sea  is  in  an  amiable 
mood.  But  when  the  sky  speaks  angrily,  when  the  heavenly 
bodies  refuse  to  speak  at  all,  and  the  sea  turns  into  an  inveter- 
ate and  pitiless  foe — ^then  I  fear  them  all,  and  regret  bitterly 
that  I  ever  left  my  fast  moorings  in  London.  I  have  known 
men  who  maintained  that  they  had  never  felt  fear.  I  am  not 
of  those.  I  confess  that  whenever  I  see  Death  about  me  I  am 
horribly  afraid  of  him — and  I  have  seen  him  in  more  than  one 
shape,  always  with  the  same  effect.  But  that  same  sinking  of 
the  heart  into  the  boots,  and  the  raising  of  it  again  to  exertion 
by  a  mere  dead  determined  pull,  that  is  not  without  pleasure  ; 
and  the  more  restless — or  in  other  words  the  better — kind  of 
men  have  always  placed  their  enjoyment  in  it.  It  is  enough  to 
make  one  believe  that  fear  is  one  of  the  chief  luxuries  of  life  ; 
and,  in  truth,  there  is  nothing  in  existence  equal  to  the  sweet- 
ness of  sailing  within  an  ace  of  the  greatest  possible  danger  and 
yet  coming  off  untouched. 

Our  great  contemporary  professors  of  religion  have  made  a 
capital  error  in  suppressing  eternal  torment  out  of  their  system, 
as  all  they  do  who  admit  that  those  of  any  other  way  of  think- 
ing than  their  own  can  escape  it.     If  a  religion  does  not  make 


FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM.  '     33 

you  feel  that  it  has  enabled  you  to  sail  close  round  destruction 
and  yet  to  weather  it,  men  will  content  themselves  with  natural 
philosophy. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

Greenwich,  Monday,  June  22. 

*'  There's  a  lovely  coffin — quite  the  last  thing — ^the  new 
High  Church  pattern — very  stylish — polished  ellum,  all  of  it — 
very  fine  figure,  too — no,  not  the  gentleman,  the  wood  I  mean — 
you  see  this  is  one  of  those  jobs  that  must  be  done,  and  sharp, 
this  hot  weather  ;  that's  why  I'm  rather  behind  with  yours. 
Very  stylish,  isn't  it,  sir  ?"  Wherewith  the  joiner  put  his 
head  aside,  looked  at  his  production  through  the  screwed-up 
corners  of  his  eyes,  and  slowly  rubbed  his  hands  one  in  the 
other  as  one  modestly  conscious  of  having  achieved  a  real  work 
of  art,  and  content  to  look  to  posterity  for  his  reward. 

I  do  hope  nobody  will  put  me  into  polished  elm  when  I  die. 
I  would  much  rather  somebody  even  raised  an  Albert  Memorial 
to  me  ;  that  would  at  least  serve  as  a  warning-beacon  to  show 
people  forever  the  kind  of  structure  they  should  not  build.  I 
can  understand  a  man  wishing  to  see  the  immaterial  part  of  him 
preserved  and  reproduced — that  desire  is  the  better  counterpart 
of  the  desire  to  procreate  and  leave  children — but  the  notion  of 
making  much  of  the  material  part  when  it  has  ceased  to  be  the 
temple  of  the  spirit  is  beyond  me. 

****** 

"  A  fiddle  is  as  good  as  ten  men  on  a  purchase"  is  a  re- 
ceived axiom  on  every  man-of-war,  and  yet  we  are  all  aware 
that  the  force  of  a  fiddle  cannot  be  translated  into  any  known 
formula  of  mechanics. 

Also  there  was  once  a  man  who  lived  to  threescore  years, 
and  was  at  that  age  ' '  made  a  fool  of, ' '  as  people  said,  by  a  lit- 
tle girl  of  seventeen  ;  but,  as  should  really  have  been  said,  had 


34  FLOTSAM   AKD   JETSAM. 

made  a  fool  of  himself  in  living  so  long  and  never  till  then 
finding  out  that  he  had  a  soul  as  well  as  a  body. 

****** 

They  say  you  may  tow  a  frigate  with  a  silken  hair  if  only 
you  once  get  her  started.  At  any  rate  there  is  a  little  insect  of 
a  man  perched  upon  that  huge  lighter,  and  looking,  as  one 
would  say,  ridiculously  incapable  of  producing  even  the  small- 
est eflEect  upon  her,  yet  managing  to  thread  his  way  without  a 
touch  through  all  this  mass  of  shipping.  Of  course  he  has  the 
tide  with  him,  but  that  any  man  may  have  twice  a  day. 

How  little  can  one  do,  or  does  one  do — how  wretched  are  the 
efforts  one  makes  in  comparison  with  the  great  thirst  and  eager- 
ness within  one  !  There  are  moments  when  a  man  feels  that 
he  could  embrace  the  whole  world  in  his  grasp  and  leave  the 
trace  of  his  fingers  all  round  it.  Think  what  a  little  it  requires 
after  all  to  move  this  poor  vacillating,  nicely-balanced  humanity 
of  ours  !  What  a  little  !  A  mere  accident — may  be  even  a 
trace  of  disease — in  the  processes  of  that  brain  tissue,  a  move- 
ment of  heaven-born  sympathy  with  one  of  the  outside  spectra, 
or  even  a  grosser  coupling  with  it  of  sordid  self-interest — and 
in  due  course  of  time  an  idea  is  born  that  shall  change  the  face 
of  the  earth,  and  even  to  the  least  incident  of  the  smallest  life 
of  those  that  dwell  therein.  What  an  effect  and  what  a  cause  ! 
Also,  what  a  courage  should  not  this  give  to  the  most  obscure 
of  us  who  would  deal  with  the  mad  phenomena  we  have  about 
us  !  And  here  is  such  an  one,  with  this  chance  open  to  him 
also,  not  stretching  forth  toward  it,  but  gone  aside  into  by- 
paths leading  he  knows  not  whither.  Who  and  what  is  any 
individual  that  he  should  seek  himself,  or  rather  lose  himself, 
in  such  strange  ways  ? 

****** 

Wednesday,  June  24. 

The  Thames  is  the  only  great  river  in  the  world  where  there 
are  no  regulations  for  traffic,  and  nobody  to  enforce  them. 
This  morning  I  saw  an  elephantine  lighter  floating  up  stream 


FLOTSAM   AND  JETSAM.  36 

without  a  soul  on  deck,  and  as  a  river  policeman  was  passing 
me  I  pointed  it  out  to  him,  and  remarked,  feelingly,  that  that 
was  how  accidents  happened.  "  Bless  you,  sir  !  they  always 
do  it,"  said  he,  "  and  we  have  no  power  to  interfere,  because 
it  is  the  Thames  Conservancy  who  have  the  control  of  the  nav- 
igation. ' '  Why,  then,  I  should  like  to  know,  don't  they  con- 
trol it  ?  or  rather,  why  should  not  their  business  be  done  by 
the  Waterman's  Company,  expanded  and  reorganized  to  that 
end  ?  It  seems  rididulous,  when  there  are  ancient  bodies  al- 
ready in  existence,  to  create  new  ones  that  will  not  do  their 
duty. 

I  was  thinking  of  these  things  when  for  the  second  time  a 
lighter  carefully  ran  into  me,  though,  thanks  to  my  look-out, 
very  tenderly  and  gently  this  time,  and  again  provoked  me  to 
a  free  use  of  river-language. 

John  Brown,  the  black  man's  hero  of  Harper's  Ferry,  when 
he  was  taken  said  that  he  was  of  more  use  for  hanging  than 
for  any  other  purpose  ;  and  so  it  proved,  for  it  was  his  hanging 
that  brought  about  the  emancipation  of  the  slaves.  All  the 
same,  it  would  have  been  better  for  John  Brown  if  it  could 
have  been  effected  at  a  less  cost. 

****** 

We  have  all  heard  yarns  of  shipwrecked  and  compassless 
mariners  who  have  steered  a  course  by  a  star,  and  got  safely  to 
port  ;  which  sounds  very  well  till  you  know  that  the  stars,  like 
the  sun  and  moon,  rise  on  one  side  the  earth  and  set  on  the 
other,  so  that -a  man  who  steered  by  them  would  be  varying  his 
course  every  minute.  Even  the  Pole-star,  which  is  the  best  of 
them  in  these  latitudes,  varies  a  little.  But,  in  fact,  the  stars 
are  of  no  use  at  all  unless  you  can  correct  them  by  the  sun. 

We  are  asked  to  believe  in  and  to  follow  our  public  men,  on 
the  ground  that  they  are  honest  and  reliable.  Yet  does  it  not 
appear  that  they  are  each  and  all  of  them  working  for  their 
own  interest — or  that  of  their  party,  which  is  the  same  thing  ? 
When  you  find  a  man  of  commercial  spirit  willing  to  pay  large 
sums  of  money  in  order  that  he  may  be  allowed  to  perform  a 


36  -    FLOTSAM   AND  JETSAM. 

public  duty,  you  may  be  sure  it  is  that  he  means  it  not  to  be  a 
public  duty  at  all  but  a  private  gain  of  some  sort,  whether  of 
dignity  or  of  cash  matters  not.  The  great  concern  is  to  know 
where  each  of  them  is  in  his  career  at  the  given  moment,  and 
which  way  he  is  tending.  Then  he  may  be  of  some  use  to 
those  who  are  capable  of  applying  the  corrections — not  other- 
wise. 

****** 

A  cautious  foreign  ambassador  in  London  once  wrote  to  his 
Court,  "  Some  say  that  the  Prince  is  dead,  some  say  that  he  is 
not — I  agree  with  neither  of  them." 

Some  people  say  that  the  hours  of  drinking  are  too  long, 
others  that  they  are  too  short.     Mr.  Cross  agrees  with  both. 


I  have  been  reading  some  old  books  which  give  strange  ac- 
counts of  a  people  rich  and  contented,  bold  and  law-abiding, 
of  "  vileins"  who  had  lands  and  brought  actions  (ay,  and  won 
them)  against  their  lords  for  infringement  of  their  rights,  of 
mean  men  well  clad  and  thoroughly  fed,  and  of  nobles  who 
kept  open  table  for  the  homeless  and  the  hungry. 

There  was  once  a  little  island  called  England  which  seemed 
destined  to  fill  the  world  with  its  name.  It  was  inhabited 
by  a  sturdy  race  of  men,  not  easy  to  goveni,  but  endowed  with 
certain  noble  qualities  which  made  all  mankind  look  upon  them 
with  respect.  They  owned  no  masters,  temporal  or  spiritual. 
They  had  humbled  France  and  Spain  ;  they  had  broken  the 
power  of  the  Papacy  ;  they  had  dethroned  their  own  kings 
many  a  time,  and  bound  their  nobles  in  chains  of  iron.  They 
fought  for  ideas — even  among  themselves — they  carried  their 
heads  high,  and  their  envoys  walked  as  men  of  a  greater  stature 
among  the  "  beggarly"  peoples  of  the  Continent.  This  was 
three  hundred  years  ago — only  three  hundred  years  ;  only  ten 
generations  ago — and  England  is  now  no  more.  An  aristoc- 
racy contrived  to  invent  the  fiction  of  actual  possession  of  the 
soil,   then  repudiated   its   burdens,    and   finally  contrived   to 


FLOTSAM    AND   JETSAM.  S? 

pawn  the  nation  to  a  company  of  adventurers  as  a  bribe  to  be 
allowed  to  retain  their  hold  over  it.  The  "  glorious  Revolu- 
tion" was  accomplished,  "  Pai-liamentary  Government"  was 
established,  taxation  was  imposed,  and  thenceforward  English- 
men at  large  became  mere  cash-paying  and  burden-bearing 
animals,  to  be  used  for  the  common  purposes  of  the  new  alli- 
ance. Between  the  allies  the  bargain  has  been  faithfully  ad- 
hered to,  and  he  who  runs  may  read  its  results.  Materially 
and  morally,  England  has  become  a  contradiction.  Never  did 
her  people  produce  so  large  a  proportion  of  the  fruits  of  the 
earth,  and  yet  never  did  they  enjoy  them  so  little.  Enormous 
wealth  by  the  side  of,  or  rather  built  upon,  enormous  pauper- 
ism, the  richest  country  in  the  world  inhabited  by  the  poorest 
people  of  the  earth,  the  disgust  of  satiety  mocking  the  pangs 
of  hunger — such  is  the  astounding  spectacle  that  we  present 
just  now  in  material  matters.  Morally  things  are  as  bad — they 
could  not,  indeed,  be  much  worse.  All  faith,  all  generosity  is 
gone.  The  privileged,  secure  in  their  possessions,  look  with 
contempt  on  those  noble  qualities  in  which  their  privilege — or 
some  of  it — took  its  rise.  The  peer  and  the  pedlar  have  com- 
bined against  the  proletarian.  They  will  allow  him  to  live, 
because  without  him  they  could  not  live  ;  but  that  is  all.  If 
he  tries  to  better  his  condition  by  strikes  according  to  all  the 
canons  of  political  economy,  that  is  pronounced  flat  rebellion, 
and  straightway  a  law  is  passed  to  curb  his  evil  desires  for  food 
and  raiment  in  sufficiency.  If  he  asks  for  education  (alas  ! 
what  education  is  more  pregnant  with  teaching  than  that  of 
keeping  a  wife  and  family  on  thirteen  shillings  a  week  !), 
they  give  him  theological  minerals  and  literary  stones — just 
enough  to  make  him  fear  the  parson  and  honor  the  squire.  If, 
in  despair,  he  would  take  his  two  hands  to  freer  climes,  he  is 
told  that  it  is  his  duty  to  starve  here  in  case  it  may  be  worth 
the  while  of  the  pedlars  to  turn  him  into  coin.  Poor  English- 
man !  it  were  well  for  him  had  he  never  been  born.  Unhap- 
pily he  is  born,  and  must  make  up  his  mind — such  of  it  as  is 
left  to  him — as  to  the  attitude  he  means  to  adopt  toward  the 


38  FLOTSAM   AKD  JETSAM. 

men  and  things  of  his  country.     Can  we  wonder  if  that  atti- 
tude is  one  of  discontent,  distrust,  and  hostility  ? 

****** 

Thursday,  June  25. 

There  was  an  Irishman  who  said  that  he  thought  the  moon 
infinitely  more  valuable  than  the  sun,  "  because,"  said  he, 
*'  you  only  have  the  sun  in  the  day,  when  you  don't  want  it, 
whereas  you  have  the  moon  at  night,  when  you  do  want  it." 
Nevertheless,  I  feel  convinced  we  should  be  in  great  difficulties 
if  that  ingenious  piece  of  mechanism,  the  sun's  lower  limb, 
were  to  be  taken  out  of  the  system  of  the  universe,  say  for  one 
day.  Nay,  even  Sirius  would  leave  a  void  that  would  be  felt, 
for  he,  too,  is  a  necessary  part  of  the  system.     * 

Idleness  is  the  root  of  all  newspapers.  On  taking  them  up 
again,  after  an  interval  of  abstention,  two  things  are  clear  to 
me.  First,  that  I  have  lost  absolutely  nothing  by  losing  the 
daily  papers  ;  secondly,  that  the  world  to  which  I  have  come 
back  for  a  time  is,  as  represented  in  them,  a  world  of  lunatics. 
1  find  the  British  Parliament,  charged,  as  we  fondly  believe, 
with  the  vital  interests  of  the  empire,  still  engaged  on  liquor 
laws  and  Plimsoll,  the  Mordaunt  case  revived,  a  lady  of  Man- 
chester eloping  with  a  12th  Lancer,  Lord  Henry  Lennox  laying 
the  foundation  stone  of  new  water- works,  and  giving  an  answer 
about  the  light  on  the  Victoria  tower,  the  Duke  of  Edinburgh 
going  to  the  regions  of  the  London  Docks  to  talk  philanthropy, 
Mr.  Burges  veneering  Sir  Christopher  Wren,  and  Mr.  Knox 
^sending  a  man  to  prison  for  a  month  with  hard  labor  because  a 
policeman  does  not  believe  his  account  of  the  way  in  which  he 
became  possessed  of  a  book.  Surely  it  must  be  pretty  well  time 
to  go  to  sea  again. 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM.  39 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

Greenwich,  Monday,  June  29. 

There  is  a  barge  anchored  close  to  me,  the  man  in  charge  of 
which  must  sleep  sounder  than  any  creature  I  ever  heard  of  in 
ancient  or  modern  history.  When  in  the  silence  of  the  night 
I  am  quietly  doing  some  of  that  work,  which  seems  to  take 
time  in  inverse  proportion  to  its  efEect,  I  hear  a  voice  from 
the  shore  calling  "  Charley,"  by  the  half-hour  together,  till  I 
am  fain  to  lay  down  my  pen  and  my  book,  and  laugh  at  its 
patient  pertinacity.  Charley  evidently  turns  in  early,  for 
the  serenade »-often  begins  at  nine  o'clock,  and  he  seems  to 
learn  nothing  from  experience,  for  it  is  almost  a  nightly 
incident. 

There  is  a  lullaby  in  small  things,  in  ripplings  of  beer,  in  ec- 
clesiastical sighings,  and  such  gentle  sounds,  such  as  seem  to 
have  sent  all  our  national  watchmen  to  sleep.  And  though  one 
stand  and  shout  one's  lungs  out,  they  will  not  hear — no,  not 
though  the  existence  of  the  city  depend  upon  it. 

****** 

Thursday,  July  2, 
You  cannot  add  one  cubit  to  your  stature  by  taking  thought ; 
and  yet  we  do  all  take  thought  (those  of  us  who  exist  at  all, 
and  do  not  vegetate),  and  bring  ourselves  into  the  strangest 
contradictions.  I,  for  instance,  have  taken  it  into  my  head 
within  the  last  week  to  be  devoured  by  the  strangest  mania  for 
becoming  possessed  of  a  "  master's  certificate  ;"  wherefore  I 
have  passed  the  last  two  days  at  the  St.  Katherine's  docks,  en- 
grossed in  calculating  problems  of  navigation  and  nautical 
astronomy.  It  will  add  nothing  to  my  stature,  and  I  know  it ; 
but  yet  I  have  already  faced  two  pent-up  days  of  meridian  and 
exmeridian  altitudes,  azimuths,  amplitudes,  and  Napier's  dia- 
grams, and  am  going  to  face  the  Board  of  Trade  knows  how 
many  more,  merely  for  a  bit  of  paper,  which  will  be  of  no  use, 


40  FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM. 

heavenly  or  earthly,  to  me  when  I  get  it — if  I  do  get  it — and 
the  getting  of  which  stands  between  me  and  the  enjoyment  of 
much  decent  weather  and  favorable  wind.  Yet  I  believe  that 
if  I  don't  get  it,  I  shall  be  about  five  times  as  much  disap- 
pointed as  I  should  be  if  I  heard  that  Saccharissa  had  run  away 
with  another  woman's  husband. 

The  great  secret  of  life  is  that  of  the  relative  importance  of 
things.  This  also  is  the  secret  we  none  of  us  ever  learn.  And 
for  various  reasons,  the  chief  of  which,  perhaps,  is  that  we 
none  of  us  ever  find  out  what  we  really  mean  to  do,  and  that 
we  therefore  never  get  a  standard  by  which  to  compare  the  rel- 
ative importance  of  two  given  things.  If  a  man  or  a  woman 
could  only  settle  on  a  certain  line  of  life — say  that  of  mere 
physical  self-satisfaction  for  instance — the  matter  would  be 
easy.  But  the  mischief  of  it  is  that  the  spirit  is  always  pulling 
one  way  and  the  flesh  another  ;  and  so  we  most  of  us  come  to 
mere  drifting  at  last.  See  what  immense  results  have  been 
achieved  by  those  who  have  frankly  abandoned  the  flesh  and 
taken  up  with  the  spirit.  Moses,  Socrates,  Mohammed,  Fra 
Bartolommeo,  Palissy,  Newton,  Swift,  the  Jesuits,  Comte, 
have  all  moved  the  world  in  their  own  direction,  and  left  a 
trace  upon  it  such  as  will  never  be  effaced.  Why  cannot  we, 
or  some  of  us,  also  make  up  our  minds  ? 


If  those  who  are  always  lauding  the  triumph  of  science,  and 
preaching  that  we  have  come  to  the  end  of  all  knowledge  and 
all  art,  could  be  abashed,  they  should  be  by  a  consideration  of 
the  triumphs  lying  close  to  our  hand,  and  which  have  never  yet 
been  even  attempted.  There  is  the  force  of  the  wind,  for 
instance,  immense  as  it  is,  now  put  to  use  only  at  sea,  or  if  on 
land  at  all,  merely  for  a  few  ridiculous  mills.  Then  there  is 
the  irresistible  powe'r  of  the  tidal  wave — who  has  ever  caught 
and  bridled  that  ? 

Also  there  is  the  soul  of  a  man,  which  is  the  strangest, 
grandest,  and  most  divine  of  all  forces.     Yet  the  only  crea- 


FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM.  41 

tures  who  make  any  kind  of  use  of  it  at  this  present  time  are 
the  Pope  and  the  Communards  I 

*****  * 

I  have  moved  my  second  anchor  out  of  the  bows  to  abaft 
the  mast.  The  principal  point  to  regard  in  the  stability  of  a 
given  ship  is  npt,  as  poor  Plimsoll  imagines,  the  weight  of  the 
cargo  put  into  her,  but  the  manner  in  which  it  is  stowed.  If 
a  light  cargo  be  ill-stowed  the  ship  is  far  more  unsafe  than  with 
a  heavy  cargo  well  stowed.  To  replace  good  stowage  by 
empty  space  is  madness. 

The  insane  desire  there  now  is  to  multiply  holidays,  is  but 
another  symptom  of  the  general  madness.  It  is  an  utter 
blunder  to  suppose  that  men  do  their  work  well  in  inverse  pro- 
portion to  its  amount.  The  capacity  of  man  for  work  is  almost 
unlimited  ;  but  then  it  must  be  work  of  a  varying  kind,  each 
kind  holding  its  proper  place.  To  expect  any  human  creature 
to  work  nine  hours  a  day  at  making  pins'  heads  is  one  form  of 
insanity — to  expect  to  relieve  him  by  half  a  Saturday  of  stagna- 
tion, a  Sunday  of  church,  and  eight  hours  at  the  sea-side  for 
half  a  crown  is  another. 

****** 

A  gentleman  was  being  examined  in  seamanship,  and  was 
asked — 

"  You  are  on  a  lee  shore,  what  do  you  do  ?" 

*'  Put  the  ship  about,  or  wear  her." 

* '  But  your  ship  will  neither  wear  nor  stay.  What  do  you 
do?" 

*'  Let  go  the  anchor." 

*'  But  there  is  no  anchorage,  the  ground  being  rocky. 
What  do  you  do  ?" 

"  Let  her  rip." 

This  gentleman  passed.  But  he  might  have  thrown  his 
yards  aback,  and  on  getting  sternway  have  let  her  come  round 
on  her  heel — which  shows  that  we  should  never  absolutely  give 
up,  but  work  right  through  at  whatever  we  are  about,  until  we 
are  really  and  finally  gone  without  remedy. 


42  FLOTSAM   AKD  JETSAM. 


CHAPTER  IX. 


Greenwich,  Saturday,  July  4. 
To-day  a  huge,  light  steamer  signalized  herself  by  trying  to 
run  down  the  guard-ship  Fisgard,  a  frigate  built  seventy  years 
ago,  distinguished  in  the  "  glorious  first  of  June,"  and  now 
put  to  these  base  uses.  Failing  in  that  she  tried  to  come 
aboard  of  me,  but  finding  I  was  one  too  many  for  her,  she  ran 
stem  on  into  a  poor  little  slip  of  a  cutter-yacht  anchored  just 
below  me,  carried  away  her  mast  and  bowsprit,  ran  her  ashore, 
went  ashore  with  her,  and  then  getting  off,  steamed  away  re- 
joicing down  the  river.  Nothing  but  the  greatest  carelessness 
or  the  greatest  unhandiness  on  the  part  of  the  steamer's 
people  could  have  brought  about  sach  an  "  accident,"  as  I 
suppose  the  running-down  will  be  called,  and  I  hope  the  owner 
of  the  little  cutter  will  be  able  to  make  her  pay.  He  was  not 
without  fault,  however,  himself,  for  he  had  gone  ashore  and 
left  nobody  on  board.  Had  I  been  in  that  case  I  should  have 
been  run  down  as  well. 

There  are  moments  in  life  when  the  sunshine  seems  to  be  taken 
from  the  world  ;  when  the  glorious  earth  has  no  beauty  left  in 
it  ;  and  when  the  very  Man  himself,  so  noble  in  truth,  so  per- 
verted to  baseness  in  appearance,  becomes  a  declared  and  bitter 
enemy.  Yet  it  is  not  they  who  have  changed,  but  only  the  eye 
that  regards  them.  It  is  clear  it  must  be  so.  The  great  struct- 
ure of  many  things  which  make  up  the  universe  is  surely  less 
likely  to  get  out  of  order  than  the  one  single  eye  that  regards 
them  ;  and  if  they  seem  to  be  in  chaos,  who  shall  say  that  it  is 
they  and  not  his  vision  that  is  deranged  ?  "We  all  of  us  fancy 
when  we  meet  troubles  that  they  are  greater  troubles  than  ever 
were  met  before.  It  is  merely  because  we  know  our  own 
troubles  better  than  we  ever  can  know  those  of  others.  I 
never  read  a  tragedy  without  smiling  at  it.  Here  is  one  single 
atom  of  this  universe,  because,  forsooth,  somebody  has  trodden 


FLOTSAM    AND   JETSAM.  43 

upon  him,  affecting  to  fill  the  whole  world  with  his  complaint 
— calling  the  gods  down  from  heaven  to  bear  witness  to  his 
suffering,  and  the  whole  world  to  weep  at  his  misery,  as 
though,  forsooth,  he  were  more  suffering  than  other  men. 
And  there  are  those  who  will  weep  with  him  in  lieu  of  burst- 
ing into  laughter  at  his  impertinent  assurance.  His  misery 
indeed  ! — Leah's  or  Othello's  misery  or  mine  !  Why,  if  every 
atom  is  to  make  a  cry  about  his  misery,  the  world  will  not 
hold  the  clamor. 

****** 

To-day  another  half-dozen  lighters  have  gone  athwart  hawse 
of  the  Fisgard  ;  and  watching  them  at  it  I  have  become  aware 
that  it  arises  in  every  case  from  beginning  too  late  to  count 
with  the  tide.  When  yet  a  long  way  off  they  think  they  have 
plenty  of  room  to  pull  clear  ;  but  then  they  go  on  thinking  it 
till  they  find  themselves  close  on  top  of  the  frigate,  when  there 
is  nothing  for  it  but  to  stop  tugging  and  let  her  drive,  which 
they  do  with  great  composure. 

Did  you  ever  feel  that  you  were  being  tempted  to  do  a  wrong 
thing — I  do  not  mean  what  the  world  says  is  wrong,  which  is 
nothing,  but  what  you  are  convinced  is  wrong,  which  is  every- 
thing ?  Did  you  ever  see  the  temptation  come  toward  you, 
you  knowing  it  for  itself  all  the  time,  and  then  feel  its  persua- 
sion steal  softly  and  caressingly  into  your  soul,  and  become 
suddenly  aware  that  you  had  lost  the  battle  even  before  you 
fought  ?  This  is  very  bitter,  for  after  all  we  do  all  of  us  wish 
and  intend  to  do  what  we  hold  to  be  right  ;  and  he  who  knows 
distinctly  for  himself  that  he  has  failed  to  do  that  on  any  occa- 
sion, carries  thenceforth  forever  with  him  the  ghost  of  the 
wrong  he  has  done — a  ghost  which  will  appear  to  him  some- 
times when  he  least  expects  it. 

*****  * 

Monday,  July  6. 

I  have  become  aware,  by  finding  the  air  filled  even  more 
than  usual  with  river-language,   that  Greenwich  holds  to-day 


44  FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM. 

what  it  is  pleased  to  call  a  regatta.  I  presume  it  may  be  pleas- 
ant enough  for  those  who  are  on  the  land,  but  for  those  whose 
house  is  on  the  water  it  merely  means  that  there  are  three 
times  as  many  craft  running  into  you,  holding  on  to  you,  and 
putting  you  generally  to  the  accredited  uses.  Probably  the 
Derby  dog,  who  is  annually  chivied  over  the  course,  is  the  only 
creature  who  does  not  thoroughly  enjoy  the  race. 

****** 

It  always  seems  to  me  that  the  love  for  athletic  sports  is  the 
one  surviving  remnant  of  that  grand  old  brutal  English  spirit 
which  once  made  us  a  great  nation.  But  I  suppose  we  shall 
soon  have  this  also  put  down  by  legislation.  There  will  be 
statistics  in  plenty  to  show  that  over-exertion  is  a  fruitful 
parent  of  crime  and  disease.  We  shall  be  told  of  the  may  ac- 
cidents that  attend  boat-races,  polo,  cricket,  running,  duck- 
hunts,  and  greasy-poles,  when  the  "  lower  classes"  are  permit- 
ted to  indulge  in  them  withoiit  being  regulated  ;  and  some 
PlimsoU  will  insist  that  outriggers  shall  have  a  freeboard  of  at 
least  six  feet. 

*  lie  *  4c  *  * 

Aj)ropos  of  PlimsoU,  why  does  that  amiable  enthusiast,  who 
loves  the  British  sailor  so  much  that  he  would  prevent  him  from 
going  to  sea,  not  take  up  the  case  of  Greenwich  Hospital  ?  I 
went  over  the  hospital  to-day,  and  was  made  so  angry  that  on 
coming  out  I  felt  inclined  to  knock  off  the  helmet  of  the 
policeman  who  stood  at  the  gate  as  the  representative  of  Gov- 
ernment. Here  is  a  splendid  pile,  built  by  private  subscrip- 
tion, endowed  and  given  forever  to  the  worn-out  sailor,  now 
taken  from  him,  and  turned  into  a  cramming-shop  for  a  few 
young  gentlemen,  while  the  sailor  is  turned  adrift  on  fourteen 
shillings  a  week.  In  1865  there  were  nearly  three  thousand 
sailors  here,  men  who  had  spent  their  lives  in  the  service  of 
their  country  ;  now  there  are  scarcely  more  than  two  hundred 
boys  coaching  for  examinations,  who  may  or  may  not  end  in 
their  serving  their  coimtry.     Formerly  it  was  a  centre  of  glori- 


FLOTSAM  AKD   JETSAM.  45 

ous  traditions,  there  was  not  a  man  who  had  not  his  tale  to  tell  ; 
now  it  is  a  mere  nursery.  The  three  thousand  occupants  were 
bribed  to  give  up  their  home,  and  then  it  was  pretended  that 
the  home  was  no  longer  the  property  of  future  occupants — 
which  was  false — and  the  Government  has  laid  hands  upon  all 
the  endowments  which  of  right  belong  still  to  those  future  oc- 
cupants to  all  generations,  and  to  none  other  ;  and  have  seized 
the  building  for  their  own  purposes — a  piece  of  spoliation 
which  is  enough  to  make  one  go  and  commit  an  assault  on  the 
Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  and  the  First  Lord  of  the  Admi- 
ralty. The  hospital  belongs  to  the  wom-up  sailor,  and  to  him 
it  ought  to  be  restored,  not  only  in  his  own  interest  but  even 
more  in  the  interests  of  the  country.  Mr.  PlimsoU  really 
ought  to  take  it  up.  He  would  exercise  his  undoubtedly  great 
power  to  some  good  if  he  would  do  this.  Let  him  see  a  few 
old  sailors,  and  hear  what  they  have  to  say  about  it. 

****** 

Tuesday,  July  V. 
I  believe  in  a  Providence  moving  and  acting  on  defined,  cer- 
tain, invariable,  beneficent  laws  ;  which  is  to  say,  that  I 
believe  in  the  existence  of  these  laws  themselves,  and  conse- 
quently in  the  existence  of  any  Being,  by  whatever  name 
called,  representing  an  attempt  to  personify  those  laws.  But  a 
Providence  ready  to  break  and  to  disregard  those  laws,  in  that 
I  do  not  believe.  How  then  must  this  Providence  smile — ^if  it 
ever  does  smile — to  find  us  men  always  wanting  to  have  the 
fox's  brush  cut  off  and  handed  to  us  without  trouble,  and  to 
get  rid  of  the  pleasure  of  the  chase,  which  is  all  that  we  really 
enjoy.  If  /  were  Providence,  and  were  by  way  of  conferring 
a  benefit  upon  mankind,  instead  of  diminishing  the  diflSculties 
of  the  chase,  as  we  are  always  whining  to  It  to  do,  I  should 
increase  them. 

****** 

We  little  coasting  yachts,  who  only  pretend  to  go  to  sea,  and 
who  are  never  really  happy  till  we  are  fast  tied  to  the  side  of  a 


46  FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM. 

quay,  with  a  big  blue  or  white  ensign  flying  and  a  party  of 
ladies  on  board  at  lunch,  are  the  most  arrant  impostors  per- 
haps in  England.  And  yet  it  appears  that  we  are  not  the  only 
impostors,  for  I  learn  that  the  ignorance  shown  by  the  modem 
sea-going  ships'  officers  when  they  come  up  to  be  examined  in 
seamanship  is  something  quite  appalling.  The  fact  is  that 
steam  first  nearly  put  an  end  to  seamanship,  and  that  the  aboli- 
tion of  the  system  of  apprenticeship  finally  killed  it  outright. 
We  live  in  times  when  nobody  will  learn  their  trade — no,  not 
even  the  statesman  whose  trade  is  the  longest  and  most  difficult 
of  all  to  learn.  I  see  that  the  whole  of  the  House  of  Lords 
indulged  in  assenting  laughter  when  Lord  Chelmsford  "  vent- 
ured to  say"  yesterday  that  its  members  could  not  do  a  rule- 
of-three  sum  in  three  hours. 


CHAPTER  X. 

Off  Margate,  Friday,  July  10. 

No  wonder  there  is  a  wreck  on  the  Girdler  Sand.  These 
entrances  to  the  Thames  are  like  Mr.  Gladstone's  opinions,  con- 
fusing on  account  of  their  very  number — not  to  say  on  account 
of  their  shallowness — and  when  you  think  you  are  certain  to  be 
able  to  get  ovt  through  one,  suddenly  you  have  to  alter  your 
course  and  take  another. 

*  ^         *  *  *  *  * 

Off  Hastings,  July  12. 

The  refreshing  feature  of  being  at  sea  I  believe  to  be  this — 
that  it  is  an  occupation  in  itself.  You  can  never  find  yourself 
in  that  most  dismal  of  all  passes,  having  nothing  to  do.  Not  a 
moment  passes  but  demands  its  thought  and  its  action.  Con- 
stant unflagging  attention  is  imposed  upon  you  by  sheer  neces- 
sity, and  the  knowledge  that  you  have  nobody  by  whose  advice 
you  can  ask  keeps  you  perforce  to  your  work.     To-day  the 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM.  47 

weather  is  so  far  equally  fine  in  fact  and  in  promise  ;  a  grateful 
breeze  is  carrying  us  between  five  and  six  knots  through  the 
water  ;  Bill  has  surpassed  himself  over  my  dinner,  and  all 
seems  prosperous.  But  who  shall  say  how  long  it  will  last  ? 
Who  can  be  sure  of  anything  there  where  every  minute  seems 
to  bring  a  change  of  some  kind  ?  That  those  who  have  been 
all  their  lives  at  sea  do  become  careless  and  inattentive  to  its 
varying  moods  we  know  ;  I  can  only  envy  them  without 
being  able  at  all  to  imitate  them  ;  and  am  always  casting 
about  to  discover  what  I  shall  do  when  that  hurricane  comes 
which  I  always  believe  to  be  pursuing  me.  Even  when  tak- 
ing a  few  hours'  dog-sleep  one  carries  the  thing  in  one's  mind, 
and  takes  account  of  the  various  things  done  on  deck.  * '  Con- 
found that  Ned,  he's  put  her  about  again  ! — always  hanging  on 
to  the  land,  just  like  a  smacksman.  There  he  is  now  taking  in 
his  gaff -topsail.  No  necessity  for  that,  I  should  say.  If  he 
doesn't  go  aboiit  soon  we  shall  come  near  that  Tower  Knoll, 
and  at  low  water  too.  Ah,  'bout  ship  !  All  right  !  Now  for 
a  sleep  !  Why,  there  he  goes  again,  and  the  wind  falling.  I 
must  turn  out,  and  get  a  cast  of  the  lead." 


July  13. 
To  really  appreciate  the  daybreak  you  must  have  passed  a 
night-watch  waiting  for  it.  What  always  strikes  me  is  that  in 
our  latitudes  the  day  never  does  break,  speaking  strictly,  but 
steals  upon  you  like  the  love  of  a  woman — scarcely  felt  at  first, 
until  you  are  quite  surprised  to  find  yourself  head  over  ears  in 
light.  Another  remark  I  always  make  is  that  in  reality  the  sun 
does  not  rise,  but  descends  upon  you.  You  see  the  higher  sky 
and  the  upper  sides  of  the  clouds  tenderly  pencilled  with  gray, 
while  below  all  is  still  black  ;  and  you  may  watch  the  light  come 
down  till  at  last  it  meets  the  horizon,  and,  not  till  it  has  put 
out  the  stars  and  even  the  comet,  joins  hands,  after  much  wait- 
ing, with  the  sun  himself,  from  whom  it  came.  This  is  very 
old,  though  ;  and  I  observe  that  the  comet,   being  newer  and 


48  FLOTSAM    AND   JETSAM. 

stranger,  gains  far  more  attention  than  any  vulgar  sunrise  can 

do.     All   which  explains  to  me  our  system  of  Parliamentary 

Government  and  the  triumph  of  nebulous  talkers  over  higher 

laws. 

****** 

Off  Beachy  Head. 
Ned  says  that  the  wind  *'  alius  fare  to  goo  round  ahead  of 
us,"  and  he  adds  "  that  alius  hev  done  so  ever  since  he' ve  been 
a  sailorizing,"  which  he  holds  to  be  an  especial  cross  invented 
for  him.  I  am  sure  he  is  delighted  to  have  this  grievance,  just 
as  Bill  is,  who  comes  to  me  quite  radiant  every  morning  and 
reports  of  the  milk '' that  hev  turned  all  curdled  like."  I 
daresay  now  if  Ned  and  Bill  and  I  were  endowed  for  our  mis- 
fortune and  that  of  mankind  with  the  faculty  of  rhetoric  we 
should  get  a  crowd  round  us  and  utter  the  most  dismal  and 
piercing  complaints  of  our  lot.  As  it  is,  we  simply  go  to  work 
to  make  the  best  of  it — which,  indeed,  is  the  only  thing  to  do 
at  sea  ;  for  you  can't  steal  anybody  else's  wind  or  milk,  and  if 
you  could  there  is  nobody  to  applaud  you. 

****** 

Nothing  seems  to  me  so  amazing  as  the  assurance  of  ths 
people  who  talk  of  the  "  lower  classes"  being  "  uneducated." 
They  are  thoroughly  well  educated  ;  their  whole  powers,  mental 
and  physical,  are  cultivated  and  developed  by  them  in  the  very 
highest  degree  for  the  work  they  have  to  do  in  life  ;  and  it  is 
not  too  much  to  say  that,  as  a  rule,  they  know  well-nigh  every- 
thing it  is  their  business  to  know.  Nay,  more  ;  they  are  the 
only  kind  of  people  of  whom  so  much  can  be  said  :  the 
"  upper  classes"  are,  as  a  rule,  profoundly  ignorant  of  those 
things  which  it  is  their  business  to  know.  When  Members  of 
Parliament  know  as  much  of  history  and  statesmanship  as 
ploughmen  do  of  ploughing  ;  when  ministers  can  conduct  a 
negotiation  as  safely  as  a  hansom  cab-driver  guides  his  cab,  or 
a  bargeman  his  lighter  ;  when  parsons  have  brought  their  light 
to  shine  before  men  as  bright  and  as  true  under  all  circum- 


FLOTSAM   AKD   JETSAM.  49 

stances  as  a  few  common  sailors  keep  the  Varne  or  the  Owners 
in  all  weathers  ;  when  judges  steer  as  true  a  course  by  the  law 
as  Ned  will  by  the  compass  ;  and  when  ladies  have  learned  to 
■wear  their  dresses  as  well  as  their  sempstresses  stitch  them — 
then  I  shall  listen  with  more  patience  to  them  when  they  talk  of 
others  being  uneducated. 

****** 

There  is  no  more  lamentable,  no  more  detestable,  specta- 
cle in  this  world  than  that  of  a  man  or  woman  who  knows 
the  higher  law  and  .yet  acts  on  the  lower.  For  those  of  us 
who  believe  in  nothing,  or  in  nothing  else  than  the  mere 
material  enjoyment  which  that  cynic  Solomon  recommends — 
for  these  there  may  be  forgiveness  :  but  what  shall  there  be 
for  those  who  know  the  truth  only  to  deny  it  by  their  acts, 
who  recognize  the  law  only  to  destroy  it  by  their  lives  ?  Surely 
the  curse  of  mankind  is  theirs,  and  the  vengeance  of  the  Eter- 
nal. 

I  know  a  man  who  might  have  been  a  blessing  and  a  saviour 
to  his  kind.  He  chose  to  become  a  chapman  and  the  father 
of  a  family.  He  is  rich  and  tranquil — which  is  the  modern 
translation  for  happy.  But  he  knows  that  he  might  have  been 
poor,  unquiet,  and  powerful  for  good  ;  and  when  I  tell  him  so 
he  winces. 

****** 

What,  then,  shall  a  man  do  with  his  life  ?  First  get  rid  of 
himself  by  providing  for  that  self  food  and  raiment  ;  and  then 
having,  as  it  were,  pensioned  himself  oflE  out  of  harm's  way,  go 
heart  and  soul,  yes,  and  pension  too,  into  any  spiritual  work. 
If  only  he  be  honest — which  to  have  done  thus  much  he  must 
be — his  work  will  not  be  a  bad  one,  whatever  it  may  be. 
Which  of  us  would  not  now  rather  be  William  Cobbett  than 
"  Loanmonger  Baring,"  Moliere  than  President  Tartufe  ;  Chat- 
terton  than  the  Bristol  Alderman  ;  Paul  than  Festus  ;  Wash- 
ington than  Lord  North  ?  Yet  while  each  pair  was  living  to- 
gethei?  in  the  world,  the  choice  of  the  vulgar  would  have  been 


50  FLOTSAM    AND   JETSAM. 

exactly  the  reverse.     And  yet  also,  while  making  the  vulgar 
choice,  we  all  flatter  ourselves  that  we  are  not  of  the  vulgar. 
****** 

Carlyle  insists  very  strongly  on  the  duty  of  hero-worship — 
and  very  unnecessarily,  for  men  are  never  backward  in  wor- 
shipping  the  heroes  they  set  up,  but  rather  the  reverse.  What 
is  far  more  important  is  that  our  heroes  should  be  of  the  right 
kind,  and  in  this  Carlyle  does  not  as  a  rule  greatly  help  but 
rather  hinders  us,  setting  up,  as  he  has  done,  some  very  strange 
scare-crows.  As  for  me,  I  can't  accept  a  hero  unless  I  am  con- 
vinced that  he  is  honest — a  large  word,  pushing  very  many  out 
of  the  heroic  circle — and  strong.  Moses  is  a  hero,  David  is 
not.  Socrates,  Plato,  Mohammed,  Leonidas,  Numa,  and  the 
Theban  Legion  are  all  heroes,  but  not  Romulus,  Caesar  or 
Alexander.  Lord  Balmeno  was  a  hero,  but  not  Hampden  ;  and 
as  much  as  I  worship  and  venerate  the  true,  so  much  do  I  de- 
spise and  detest  the  false.  Neither  are  we  without  heroes  in 
these  times.  I  know  four  such,  and  I  love  and  venerate  them 
as  greatly  as  I  do  any  of  the  noble  army  known  and  unknown 
who  have  gone  before  them.  They  are  obscure  men,  whose 
names  have  scarcely  been  heard,  but  men  of  heroic  mould,  and 
doing  hero's  work.  In  tiroes  when  notoriety  is  confounded  with 
heroism,  it  cannot  be  expected  that  the  world  should  recognize 
its  best  men.     But  that  it  should  worship  some  of  its  worst  is 

unendurable. 

****** 

There  are  times  when  one  is  tempted  to  think  the  Americans 

the  most  hateful  people  of  the  earth.     Their  professed  creed, 

that  on  which  all  their  humor  and  satire  are  based  (for  this  is 

really  the  test),  is  that  all  poetry,  all  sentiment,  all  religion — 

in  short,  all  that  has  been  from  all  time  held  in  the  Old  World 

to  be  the  better  and  finer  part  of  our  nature,  is  a  miserable 

nonsensical  make-believe  swindle.     But,  in  fact,  they  are  the 

merest  impostors  when  they  put  on  this  mask,  and  are  simply 

affecting  to  follow  the  laws  of  that  God  Majority  in  whom  they 

affect  to  believe.     There  is  no  more  sentimental,   impulsive, 


FLOTSAM  AND   JETSAM.  51 

liigh-flown  people  »mder  the  sun.  They  it  is,  and  not  we  Eng- 
lish, who  remember  a  birthday,  and  send  a  Utile  token  of  a 
flower  or  a  scrap  of  paper  costing  twopence.  They  it  is,  and 
n6t  we,  who  still  believe  in  and  who  do  mad  heroic  acts  ;  they, 
and  not  we,  who  devote  themselves  with  their  lives  and  for- 
tunes (as  Englishmen  of  the  old  time  would  have  said)  to  the 
right  or  even  to  the  wrong  if  they  believe  in  it.  I  wish  Eng- 
lishmen were  in  this  like  unto  them. 


CHAPTER  XI. 

Aeundkl,  15th  July. 
Surely  it  is  an  admirable  thing  to  find  a  Duke  ready  to 
spend  a  million  on  something  else  than  his  own  material  enjoy- 
ment or  the  purchase  of  words  ;  therefore  I  honor  the  Duke  of 
N^orfolk  and  his  cathedral  very  greatly — all  the  more  because  I 
see  so  few  men  left  to  do  what  in  former  times  so  many  did — 
part  with  their  substance,  and,  if  need  were,  their  lives,  for  the 
sake  of  their  belief.     I  honor  Kossel  just  as  much,  for  he  too 

did  this. 

****** 

Off  Selsea  Bill,  18tli  July. 
I  know  a  lady  who  makes  it  a  complaint  against  seafaring  in 
general,  and  especially  against  yachting,  that  "  you  are  always 
thinking  of  your  crew  ;  you  can't  dine  after  six  because  the 
forecastle  gets  so  hot  ;  if  you  want  to  go  ashore  you  have  to 
wait  till  the  men  have  finished  their  dinner,"  etc.,  etc.  ;  yet  it 
seems  to  me  not  a  bad  thing  that  we  should  become  aware  that 
even  these  inferior  animals  have  wants  to  supply  and  souls  to 
save.  To  learn,  even  at  the  price  of  waiting  five  minutes  for  a 
boat,  that  consideration  and  respect — yes,  respect — are  due  to 
all  men,  is  to  learn  no  small  and  no  common  thing.  Dogs  and 
horses  are,  no  doubt,  the  only  living  creatures  out  of  one's  own 


52  FLOTSAM    AND   JETSAM. 

set  witli  whicli  one  should  really  occupy  oneself — yet  I  am  very 
fond  of  men  and  women. 


Off  Fecamp,  20th  July. 

I  have  been  '*  carrying  on"  with  a  fine  strong  breeze,  in  or- 
der to  make  my  light  and  save  my  tide  ;  and  watching  my  top- 
mast bend  like  a  reed  under  the  gaff-topsail,  I  think  of  the 
Spanish  proverb  which  says  that,  "It  is  the  weakest  pull  that 
breaks  the  rope  at  last,"  and  I  reflect  that  like  most  proverbs 
it  asserts  a  falsehood  under  the  guise  of  truth.  We  are  get- 
ting eight  knots  an  hour  out  of  the  Billy  Baby,  not  without 
risk  of  something  giving,  yet  it  is  not  the  eighth  knot  that  en- 
dangers anything  ;  but  really  all  the  eight  together,  and  rather 
the  preceding  seven  than  the  last  one.  Indeed,  one  may  go 
still  farther  back  and  say  that  it  is  the  whole  of  my  particular 
life  and  character  which  are  now  engaged  in  straining  at  this 
stick.  Ned  doesn't  approve  of  it  ;  but  then  I  have  learned  to 
hate  waiting  outside  French  ports,  to  cut  things  fine  and  to  risk 
something — even  a  spar — in  order  to  carry  a  point  to  which 
for  a  moment  I  attach  importance.  From  which  the  chain  of 
cause  and  effect  is  plain. 

I  wonder  people  are  not  sick  of  hearing  the  oft-repeated  false- 
hood as  to  great  events  springing  from  little  causes.  It  was 
not  the  geese  who  saved  the  Capitol,  but  the  piety  of  its  de- 
fenders, who  had  refrained  even  in  the  pangs  of  hunger  from 
eating  those  sacred  birds  ;  it  was  not  Hampden's  twenty  shil- 
lings of  ship-money  that  brought  Charles  to  the  scaffold,  but 
the  long-settled  determination  of  the  landed  proprietors  to  shift 
the  burden  of  taxation  from  themselves  to  the  people  of  Eng- 
land ;  it  was  not  the  ordinances  of  July  that  brought  about 
Charles  X.'s  abdication,  nor  the  prohibition  of  a  banquet 
which  caused  the  fall  of  Louis  Philippe,  but  the  hatred  and  dis- 
trust France  had  learned  for  the  whole  Bourbon  race  during  cen- 
turies of  misgovernment.  Some  day  in  England  we  may  have 
great  effects  produced,  and  they  will  also  probably  be  traced 


FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM.  53 

to  some  trifling  cause,  some  bill  rejected  or  some  measure  ac- 
cepted ;  whereas  they  will  be  due  to  causes  which  are  acting 
now  all  over  the  country,  and  which  no  man  sees. 

****** 

*'  A  new  nobility,"  says  Bacon,  "  is  the  act  of  Power  ; 
but  an  ancient  nobility  is  the  act  of  Time."  It  always  seems 
to  me  one  of  the  great  causes  of  our  present  confusion  that  all 
the  really  ancient  nobility  were  killed  in  the  wars  of  the  Roses. 
Thenceforth  we  have  had  mere  impostors  for  our  nobles,  men 
without  traditions,  who  have  gone  as  a  matter  of  course  into 
ignoble  ways.  At  present  our  aristocracy  is  composed  of  com- 
mercially-souled  men,  intent,  not  at  all  upon  maintaining  the 
honor  of  an  order  into  which  they  have  been  smuggled,  but  on 
adding  to  their  rents  and  the  places  of  their  cousins.  And  yet 
those  people  have  the  face  to  lament  the  "  demoralization"  of 
the  inferior  classes,  who  are,  after  all,  the  least  corrupted  of 
any.  Nay,  if  our  orders  were  suddenly  turned  upside  down, 
if  the  mean  men  were  to  change  place  with  the  noble,  I  know 
enough  of  both  to  be  sure  that  things  would  be  far  more  nearly 
in  their  natural  order.  But  we  believe  too  thoroughly  in  words 
to  care  for  their  meaning  or  to  hold  that  there  is  any  danger  in 
their  perversion.  There  is  something  almost  sacred  in  a  "  most 
high  and  puissant, "  a  "  most  noble, "  or  an  "  honorable' '  man 
— but  a  most  high  and  puissant  liar  and  traitor,  a  most  noble 
scoundrel,  and  an  honorable  swindler,  these  are  creatures  who 
canot  really  be  anything  but  despised,  even  by  those  who  most 
readily  give  them  their  false  titles. 

****** 

2l8t  July. 

There  was  once  a  man  who  set  himself  to  sail  across  the 
Channel.  He  was  thoroughly  versed  in  navigation,  and  with 
his  meridianal  parts,  his  radius,  his  difference  of  longitude  and 
latitude,  he  calculated  his  cause  to  within  half  a  degree,  cor- 
rected it  for  deviation  and  variation,  translated  it  into  sailoriz- 
ing  language,  set  it  to  the  helmsman,  and  turned  in,  confident 


64  FLOTSAM   AND  JETSAM. 

that  if  the  wind  stood  he  would  make  his  given  point  an  hour 
before  daybreak.     The   wind   did  stand,  yet  at  this  hour  he 
found  himself  fourteen  miles  to  the  westward  of  his  port.     For 
he  had  entirely  forgotten  to  allow  for  a  spring  tide. 
****** 

The  romancers  are  still  effective  teachers  ;  but  they  have  alto- 
gether abandoned  the  notion  of  ensamplcs  for  imitation,  and 
only  seek  to  display  deformities  for  amusement.  The  teacher 
writes  rather  down  to  the  lowest  standard  than  up  to  the  highest ; 
whereof  the  cause  and  effect  are  that  the  reader  will  not  endure 
to  hear  of  aught  higher  than  himself,  and  rather  seeks  in  the 
hero  an  excuse  for  his  own  littleness,  than  endure  to  be  shamed 
by  him  into  the  effort  to  achieve  greatness.  Formerly  the  ro- 
mancer called  upon  "  all  you  who  love  joy,  and  delight  in 
honor  and  noble  deeds,"  to  admire  an  impossible  hero — now  he 
calls  upon  meanness  and  delight  in  hypocrisy  and  indolence  to 
amuse  and  flatter  themselves  with  a  very  possible  vulgarian. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

Dieppe,  24th  July. 
I  DO  not  think  that  the  sun  was  a  worse  sun  than  it  is  now 
•when  men  believed  that  it  was  moved  round  the  earth,  instead 
of  the  earth  being  moved  round  it,  or  that  the  earth's  motion 
is  less  true  because  men  say  it  moves  and  not  it  is  moved. 
Neither  do  I  hold  that  the  uncertainty  as  to  the  authorship  of 
parts  of  the  Bible  in  any  way  detracts  from  its  authority.  It  is 
a  divine  work  whoever  wrote  it,  and  that  is  enough.  I  have 
no  conception  of  Homer,  none  of  Shakespeare,  and  very  little 
of  Dante,  of  Bacon,  of  Milton,  of  Sterne,  or  even  of  Victor 
Hugo — how  shall  one  have  a  complete  conception  of  any  man 
or  men  when  one  has  so  incomplete  a  conception  of  one's 
self  ? — but  I  have  a  conception  of  their  work   and  that  is 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM.  66 

enough.  Why  should  we  apply  a  different  rule  to  the  Bible  ? 
There  it  is,  a  grand  record  of  divine  things  ;  the  form  is  noth- 
ing, the  incident  with  which  it  is  clothed  is  nothing,  and  above 
all  the  language  in  which  it  is  rendered  is  nothing  ;  so  that 
when,  if  ever,  the  compilers  of  the  now  to  be  "  authorized  ver- 
sion" shall  have  turned  it  into  newspaper  leader  English,  and 
shall  have  cut  out  a  few  strong  expressions,  they  will  not  have 
changed  it  one  atom.  For  they  cannot  touch  its  spirit,  how- 
ever much  they  may  disfigure  its  form. 

"  Every  idle  word  that  men  shall  speak,  they  shall  give  an 
account  thereof  in  the  day  of  judgment."  That  is  not  to  say 
that  men  are  never  to  speak  idle  words,  but  that  they  will  have 
to  show  that  the  occasion  was  such  as  demanded  no  others. 
You  and  I,  and  insignificant  people  in  general,  may  upon  insig- 
nificant occasions  be  as  idle  as  we  please  ;  but  not  so  those  who 
assume  to  be  teachers  and  leaders  of  men.  What  an  account 
will  our  leaders  and  teachers  have  to  give  ! 

"  By  their  fruits  shall  ye  know  them."  I  care  not  what  a 
man  says,  though  he  should  speak  with  tongues  of  Gladstone 
and  Disraeh.  Show  me  the  work  he  has  done,  and  I  know  the 
man  for  what  he  is.  It  is  only  by  the  effect  of  that  he  has 
achieved  that  he  is  here  at  all.  If  he  has  lived  for  himself 
alone,  if  he  has  in  fact  achieved  nothing,  then  he  is  not  here 
at  all,  but  is  merely  a  simulacrum  or  make-believe  man. 

FficAMP,  26th  July. 
I  went  to-day  to  the  one  jeweller  and  silversmith  of  the  town 
to  buy  one  of  those  delightful  old  copper-colored  gold  Norman 
crosses  for  a  present.  The  silversmith  had .  not  got  one, 
"  Mais,"  said  he,  "  j'en  aurai  bientot. "  "  How  ?"  I  asked. 
"  Dame,  monsieur,  le  gollt  est  aux  antiquites,  et  quand  il  n'en 
reste  plus  on  est  force  d'en  fabriquer."  * 

*  "But,"  said  he,  "I  shall  have  them  soon."  "How?"  I  asked. 
"Well,  monsieur,  the  demand  is  for  antiquities,  and  as  there  are 
none  left,  it  is  necessary  to  manufacture  them." 


66  FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM. 

One  thing  has  somewhat  surprised  me  of  late  in  France — 
though,  indeed,  whoever  knows  France  ought  never  to  be  sur- 
prised— it  is  that  I  find  almost  everybody  who  speaks  to  me 
confidentially  avowing  that  he  is  a  Legitimist.  They  dare  not 
publish  their  opinions,  but  that  does  not  detract  from  their  im- 
portance ;  for  in  this  country,  as  in  most  others,  those  who 
hold  strongly  convictions  that  cannot  be  published  to-day  are 
the  masters  of  to-morrow.  Henri  V.,  by  his  attitude  and  his 
manifestoes  of  rigid  consistency,  is  supposed  throughout  Eu- 
rope to  have  destroyed  his  chance  of  ever  coming  to  the  throne. 
In  fact,  he  has  enormously  increased  it,  for  this  is  the  one  peo- 
ple in  the  world  that  believes  in  principles,  and  will  stand  to  a 
man  who  shows  that  he  values  his  principles  more  than  his  in- 
terest. 

****** 

I  started  yesterday  for  Havre  ;  but  after  knocking  about  all 
night,  and  reefing  myself  down  to  three  pocket-handkerchiefs, 
I  find  myself  here,  with  no  other  excuse  than  that  I  wanted 
to  see  the  place,  didn't  care  for  Havre,  and  wasn't  going 
to  face  a  strong  breeze  and  dirty  weather,  for  the  sake  of 
getting  to  that  rather  than  to  this  port.  "  You  must 
be  somewhere,"  I  reflected,  and  it  matters  neither  to  me 
nor  to  anybody  else  where  /  am,  therefore  I'll  go  to  Fe- 
camp, get  a  dry  suit,  and  breakfast,  and  take  a  fresh  de- 
parture. 

Years  ago,  when  I  was  a  young  man,  I  knew  the  most 
charming,  ingenuous  brown-eyed  little  girl  that  ever  gladdened 
the  eyes  of  a  boy.  She  was  at  a  convent  at  school,  and  used 
to  send  me  messages  of  remembrance  through  her  cousin.  I 
have  seen  her  again — married,  and  the  mother  of  many  chil- 
dren— and  it  has  brought  back  to  me  my  youth,  and  drawn  me 
to  a  review  of  the  things  I  have  done  with  it.  A  sad  review  is 
this  to  most  of  us,  but  how  sad  to  one  who  like  me  is  con- 
vinced of  the  power  of  every  man  to  do  that  which  he  really 
means  to  do,  and  who  looks  forward  and  sees  the  port,  only  to 
know  that  he  uas  never  been  "  looking  up"  seriously  for  it, 


FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM.  57 

and  has  played!" with  every  puff  that  blew  and  made  a  fair  wind 
of  every  breeze  however  contrary. 

****** 

Most  of  us  who  have  straggled  out  of  the  trammels  of  educa- 
tion and  belongings  into  our  own  life  here,  first  become  aware  of 
it  by  becoming  confronted  with  this  question  :  what  to  do  with 
it  ?  To  do  something  that  shall  bear  fruit  is  felt  all  at  once  to 
be  a  necessity  without  which  existence  were  not  existence. 
"  Here  am  I,"  says  the  dazed  eager  neophyte,  "  with  my  head 
and  my  two  hands  manifestly  not  given  to  me  for  nothing  ;  I 
am  full  of  life  and  courage.  I  could  move  a  world.  There  is 
a  restless,  unappeasable  longing  in  me,  which  will  not  let  me, 
even  were  I  so  minded,  shame  my  Maker  and  myself  by  simply 
cumbering  the  earth,  which  drives  me  to  action  that  will  leave 
a  trace  here  when  I  shall  be  gone.  Not  a  trace  of  my  name, 
perhaps — that  is  nothing — but  some  work  which  shall  be,  in 
any  degree,  however  small,  a  valuable  inheritance  to  my  kind. 
Something  I  must  and  will  do  ;  but  what,  in  God's  name, 
what  ?" 

The  answer  is  found  as  soon  as  the  question  is  asked.  Do 
anything,  so  that  it  is  actually  you  who  do,  and  not  another, 
and  so  that  the  thing  is  done,  and  not  merely  sketched  or  imi- 
tated. The  world  is  full  of  work,  of  good  work,  in  infinite 
variety.  Conceive  but  one  little  idea,  and,  having  placed  it  on 
record,  you  have  planted  an  imperishable  seed,  and  may  go 
down  to  the  grave  content.  It  may  not  be  a  great  idea,  but  if 
it  truly  is  one  of  your  own,  and  not  another  man's  which  you 
have  put  on,  you  have  done  something.  The  point  is  that  you 
must  begin  while  the  divine  enthusiasm  is  still  on  you.  If  not 
you  will  fall  into  the  common  ruck  and  do  naught.  The  basis 
of  everything  still  is  labor,  and  you  must  affront  the  labor  now; 
if  you  delay,  it  will  affright  you,  and,  like  the  rest,  you  will 
run  cunning.  It  is  the  conscripts  who  volunteer  for  forlorn 
hopes  :  the  old  soldier  values  his  skin  too  highly,  and  esteems 
too  lightly  the  prize.     Begin  on  what  you  will,  but  begin. 

Remember,  too,  that  it  is  your  glory  as  it  is  your  fate,  that 


58  FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM. 

you  are  here  for  your  work  alone.  Other  matters  may  and  will 
occupy  you,  but  they  are  all  subordinate.  Your  friend  will 
betray  you,  the  woman  you  love  will  deceive  you,  you  will  find 
yourself  maybe  one  day  in  deadly  struggle  with  poverty,  and 
with  what  is  worse  than  poverty — contempt.  You  will  suffer — 
deeply,  bitterly,  perhaps — but  what  is  that  to  a  man  who  looks 
first  to  his  work  in  life  ?  He  does  but  go  into  the  wilderness 
to  pray,  which  only  means  to  resolve  and  to  puipose  earnestly, 
and  will  come  back  again  all  the  stronger. 

*  *  *  f:  *  * 

27th  July. 

Fecamp  is  a  charming  little  town,  intent  just  now  on  the  at- 
tempt to  render  itself  a  disgusting  big  watering-place.  The 
casino  possesses  three  half-reclaimed  fishermen,  who  appear  as 
haigneurs  in  the  morning,  and  disguise  themselves  in  tail-coats 
to  do  duty  as  waiters  in  the  evening.  There  is  a  splendid  old 
church,  evidently  much  frequented,  for  in  it  is  this  notice  : 
**  On  engage  les  fiddles  a  ne  pas  cracher  sur  le  pave  de  I'^lise, 
surtout  dans  la  chapelle  de  la  Sainte  Vierge."  *  Also,  it  is  the 
headquarters  of  the  "  Liquor  Monachorum  Benedictinorum," 
which  is  no  more  made  by  monks  than  is  Bass's  beer,  but  in 
the  most  ordinary  lay  manufactory. 

The  church  is  quite  a  gem,  with  its  lovingly-carved  chapels 
and  oak  panels,  and  its  perfect  and  delicately-arched  aisles  ; 
and  so,  too,  is  the  Chapel  of  Notre  Dame  de  Salut  on  the  top 
of  the  cliff  full  of  those  rude  ex-voto  models  of  ships  that  recall 
the  perils  of  sailorizing.  But  the  Revolution  has  left  both 
much  ruined  ;  and  once  again  I  find  myself  regretting  the 
monks,  and  noting  how  imperfectly  their  principal  function  of 
succoring  the  poor,  both  spiritually  and  materially,  is  fulfilled 
by  the  State-salaried  clergy  and  poor-reliever,  who  in  modern 
times  have  replaced  them. 


*  "The  faithful  are  requested  not  to  spit  on  the  pavement  of  the 
church,  above  all  in  the  chapel  of  the  Holy  Virgin." 


FLOTSAM    AND   JETSAJt.  59 

Has  it  ever  occurred  to  English  legislators  and  diplomatists, 
sitting  in  the  serene  heights  of  church  patronage  and  Brussels 
congresses,  to  note  this  little  fact — that  the  English  fishermen 
are  supreme  in  dredging  oysters,  and  that  the  French  fisher- 
men are  superior  to  them  in  catching  mackerel  and  herrings  ? 
And  will  they  never  make  thereupon  this  reflection,  that  it 
would  be  wise  to  carry  into  effect  the  Convention  of  1867, 
which  enabled  French  fishermen  to  sell  their  fish  in  English 
ports,  and  English  fishermen  to  sell  their  fish  in  France  ?  The 
result  would  be  that  oysters  would  be  considerably  cheaper  in 
France,  and  mackerel  and  herrings  in  England.  But  then 
mackerel  and  herrings  are  the  food  of  the  common  people,  and 
of  course  are  not  worthy  the  attention  of  statesmen  and  diplo- 
matists. If  it  were  a  question  of  turbots  or  lobsters,  the  case 
would  be  different,  as  indeed  the  law  has  already  declared  it  to 
be  in  a  notable  instance. 

Bacon  says  "  the  rebellions  of  the  belly  are  the  worst  ;" 
whence  it  is  to  be  inferred,  if  we  did  not  otherwise  know  it  for 
a  fact,  that  the  necessities  of  the  belly  are  the  most  pressing. 
Yet,  strangely  enough,  the  bitterness  of  hunger  has  scarcely 
ever  found  a  man  with  the  gift  of  effectual  speech  to  show  all 
the  misery  and  all  the  pity  of  it.  For  every  little  sentimental 
suffering  there  has  been  a  voice,  but  none  for  this  great  mate- 
rial suffering  which  always  exists.  Probably  it  is  because  the 
hungry  do  not  buy  books.  Yet  surely  here  is  a  great  un- 
touched field.  If  so  much  can  be  done  with  and  for  the  man 
who  is  dying  of  love,  and  does  not  die,  how  much  more  could 
be  done  with  and  should  be  done  for  the  man  who  is  dying  of 
hunger — and  does  die  ! 

****** 

Here  is  here  an  ordinary-looking  man  of  middle  age.  He 
looks  like  a  retired  stockbroker  ;  he  is  not  in  any  way  lovely  or 
admirable  ;  and  he  walks  in  a  solitary  manner  up  and  down  the 
shore  in  a  large  straw-hat  and  boots  like  a  Thames  lighter, 
swinging  a  piteous  whity-brown  umbrella.  He  is  always  deep 
in  tliought,  and,  looking  at  him,  I  wonder  what  such  a  man  can 


60  JLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM. 

be  thinking  about.  Not  of  business,  or  of  any  present  action, 
or  he  would  not  be,  as  he  seems  to  be,  permanently  settled 
down  here,  doing  nothing.  Not  of  future  projects  either,  for 
he  is  past  the  age  for  them.  He  is  recalling  his  memories  man- 
ifestly; and  the  mere  listless  hanging  of  his  head  and  his  um- 
brella show  that  they  are  not  enlivening  or  satisfactory.  Now 
I  would  wager  something  that  he  has  in  his  mind  at  this  mo- 
ment the  recollection  of  that  woman  who  jilted  him,  and  is 
thinking  how  hard  it  was,  and  how  different  everything  might 
have  been.  As  for  that  other  woman,  whom  he  jilted  (for  at 
his  age  these  two  things  have  happened  to  all  men),  he  never 
thinks  of  her. 

Surely  it  is  an  admirable  feature  of  our  organization  that  we 
remember  only  the  wrong  we  have  suffered,  and  not  that  we 
have  done.  Were  it  otherwise  we  should  not  be  able  to  en- 
dure ourselves  ;  and  what  is  perhaps  worse,  our  sorrows  would 
be  real  sorrows  instead  of  being  luxuries.  Of  all  the  treasures 
in  life  there  is  none  so  great  as  to  feel  this — upon  such  an  oc- 
casion I  truly  did  my  whole  duty,  and  yet  was  wrongfully 
treated.  And  it  is  his  treasure  a  man  counts  when  he  is  alone 
with  his  hat  and  boots  and  umbrella. 

****** 

A  lady  of  quality,  learning  that  a  too  well-known  actress 
wished  to  sell  her  diamonds,  and,  overcoming  her  scruples  in 
the  hope  of  a  bargain,  went  direct  to  her  to  deal  for  them. 
The  actress  demanded  for  them  a  large  sura  of  money,  upon 
which  the  lady  professed  to  be  quite  astonished  and  scandalized 
at  its  exorbitance.  At  last  the  actress  went  into  a  huff,  and 
cried — 

' '  I  see  what  it  is — you  would  like  to  have  them  at  cost 
price." 

The  lady  retired  abashed  and  told  her  husband,  who  laughed 
much. 

I  am  always  reminded  of  this  story  when  I  hear  of  men  seek- 
ing to  be  Ministers  of  State,  Members  of  Parliament,  and  such- 
like things  ;  and  when  1  see  one  who  has  succeeded,  knowing 


FLOTSAM   AND  JETSAM.  61 

the  ways  by  which  he  has  passed,  the  dirt  he  has  had  to  eat, 
and  the  dishonesty  he  has  had  to  display — then  I  respect  every- 
body who  is  nothing. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

CowES,  5th  August. 
It  is  curious  enough  that  we  always  remember  people  by 
their  worst  points,  and  still  more  curious  that  we  always  sup- 
pose that  we  ourselves  arc  remembered  by  our  best.  I  once 
knew  a  hunchback  who  had  a  well-shaped  hand,  and  was  con- 
tinually showing  it.  He  never  believed  that  anybody  noticed 
his  hump,  but  lived  and  died  in  the  conviction  that  the  whole 
town  spoke  of  him  no  otherwise  than  as  the  man  with  the 
beautiful  hand,  whereas,  in  fact,  they  only  looked  at  his  hump, 
and  never  so  much  as  noticed  whether  he  had  a  hand  at  all. 
This  young  lady,  so  pretty  and  so  clever,  is  simply  the  girl 
who  had  that  awkward  history  with  So-and-so  ;  that  man,  who 
has  some  of  the  very  greatest  qualities,  is  nothing  more  than 
the  one  who  behaved  so  badly  on  such  an  occasion.  It  is  a 
terrible  thing  to  think  that  we  are  all  always  at  watch  one  upon 
the  other,  to  catch  the  false  step  in  order  that  we  may  have  the 
grateful  satisfaction  of  holding  our  neighbor  for  one  who  can- 
not walk  straight.  No  regard  is  paid  to  the  better  qualities 
and  acts,  however  numerous  ;  all  the  attention  is  fixed  upon 
the  worst,  however  slight.  If  St.  Peter  were  alive  he  would 
be  known  as  the  man  who  denied  his  Master  ;  St.  Paul  would 
be  the  man  who  stoned  Stephen  ;  and  St.  Thomas  would  never 
be  mentioned  in  any  decent  society  without  allusions  to  that 
unfortunate  request  for  further  evidence.  Probably  this  may 
be  the  reason  why  we  all  have  so  much  greater  a  contempt  for 
and  distrust  of  each  other  than  would  be  warranted  by  a  cor- 
rect balance  between  the  good  and  the  evil  that  are  in  each. 


62  FLOTSAM   AND  JETSAJf. 

I  don't  think  I  would  give  much  for  the  gift  of  prophecy, 
for  I  have  never  met  with  a  case  in  which  it  has  achieved  any- 
thing like  a  brilliant  success.  Europe  is  not  yet  either  Cossack 
or  Republican,  the  British  farmer  has  not  been  ruined,  and  the 
gathering  of  the  tribes  into  the  New  Jerasalem  seems  rather 
farther  off  than  ever,  judging  from  the  hold  they  have  taken 
upon  all  the  Gentile  nations.  And  if  I  would  give  little  for  the 
power  of  predicting  the  future,  I  would  give  scarcely  more  for 
the  power  of  rightly  appreciating  the  past.  What  we  live  in 
is  the  present,  and  neither  future  nor  past  are  of  any  value, 
save  in  so  far  as  they  bear  upon  that.  The  cases  we  have  to 
deal  with  are  all  new  and  special,  and  all  demand  instant  reso- 
lution and  action,  in  which  general  rules  are  of  the  smallest  pos- 
sible avail.  There  are  but  seven  notes  in  the  scale,  yet  with 
them  infinite  melodies  may  be  made  ;  nay  it  were  even  impos- 
sible for  any  composer  to  make  of  them  with  his  own  wit  alone 
any  but  quite  a  new  melody.  That  we  are  most  of  us  not  com- 
posers, but  mere  parrot  repeaters  of  compositions  not  our  own, 
is  only   the   explanation   of  the   many   miserable  failures  we 

supply. 

****** 

A  huge  ungainly  government  lighter  was  one  day  towed  into 
Cowes  Roads,  and  the  naval  oflScer  in  charge  began  to  take 
bearings  and  to  measure  angles  in  order,  as  it  manifestly  ap- 
peared, to  lay  down  moorings  in  a  given  spot.  When  all  was 
at  the  point  of  readiness  a  boat  came  alongside,  and  a  very 
superior  personage  in  gold  lace  and  buttons  said  to  the  oflBcer  : 
"  If  you  put  down  them  moorings  here  you'll  be  foul  of  ray 
vessel."  "  Why,  who  are  you  ?"  asked  the  officer,  taking  a 
horizontal  sight  at  Egypt  Point  and  the  Trinity  flagstaff.  "  I'm 
the  master  of  the  vessel  of  Commodore  the  Earl  of  Wilton." 
"  Well,  now,"  asked  the  officer,  reading  off  his  angle,  and  find- 
ing that  he  had  at  last  got  the  exact  spot ;  "  which  do  you 
think  is  the  greatest  person,  Commodore  the  Earl  of  Wilton  or 
Her  Majesty  the  Queen  of  England  ?"  This  was  a  nice  ques- 
tion, and  while  the  plenipotentiary  was  considering  it,  the  offi- 


FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM.  63 

cer  resumed,  "  because  I  am  ordered  by  the  Queen  of  England 
to  put  down  these  moorings  here.  All  ready  there  ? — let  go," 
and  down  they  went  accordingly. 

****** 

I  have  given  much  attention  to  the  education  of  the  Queen 
of  Sheba  (disrespectfully  called  Sheba),  and  have  made  her 
understand  that  she  is  not  to  sleep  on  my  velvet-pile  cabin 
carpet,  but  in  a  comfortable  berth  provided  for  her  on  deck. 
She  is  very  fond  of  me,  yet  when  I  came  on  board  this  after- 
noon she  slunk  away  and  entirely  declined  any  interview.  I 
have  now  discovered  that  the  reason  was  that  she  had  had  the 
misfortune  to  steal  two  mutton  chops  and  eat  them. 

One  rarely  meets  a  man  who  cannot  endure  to  bear  good 
fortune  alone,  or  who  at  once  sets  about  seeking  another  to 
share  it  with  him.  Yet  we  none  of  us  can  rest  until  we  find  a 
friend  with  whom  to  share  evil  fortune.  It  is  a  blessed  thing 
that  merely  to  describe  a  sorrow  and  to  have  it  received  with 
sympathy  real  or  affected  is  to  lose  one  half  of  it^  and  often 
even  to  make  of  the  other  half  a  valuable  piece  of  property. 
What  is  really  hard  is  evil  fortune  which  cannot  be  told. 

*  *  *       .       *  *  * 

Bill  is  considered  in  his  native  Aldeburgh  as  a  very  revolu- 
tionary character.  He  has  been  known  to  say  that  "  he  don't 
care  to  live  there  always,  he  don't,"  a  length  of  recklessness 
which  no  inhabitant  of  that  favored  spot  had  ever  previously 
reached,  so  that  he  is  looked  upon  as  a  dangerous  atheist  and 
freethinker  in  disguise,  the  kind  of  person  to  lead  an  insurrec- 
tion, or  found  a  new  religion,  or  something  equally  subversive. 
Yet  even  Bill  confides  to  me  that  he  would  like  a  berth  on 
board  a  lightship.  I  point  out  to-  him  the  dignity  of  being 
independent,  the  advantage  of  passing  his  life  in  cooking 
omelettes  for  me  in  that  perfection  to  which  he  has  now  pain- 
fully attained,  and  of  surveying  the  world  on  board  the  Billy 
Baby  from  Greenwich  to  the  Lizard — as  compared  with  lead- 
ing a  mere  existence,  shut  up  in  the  Galloper  or  the  Kentish 


64  FLOTSAM   AND  JETSAM. 

Knock.  It  is  in  vain.  Bill  says  that  a  lightship  is  "  a  regu- 
lar good  berth,  that  is,"  and  I  see  in  him  yet  another  who  is 
ready  to  give  up  the  highest  aims  and  aspirations  for  a  mere 
assured  living. 

Men  will,  I  believe,  do  anything  rather  than  face  the  trouble 
and  anxiety  of  thought  and  action  of  their  own.  "  Give  us  a 
despot,  a  priest,  a  rule,  somebody  or  something  that  shall  think 
and  act  for  us,  leaving  us  only  the  mechanical  part  of  the  work 
— this,  we  know  we  can  do  ;  that,  we  fear  to  undertake." 
Hence  arise  parties,  autocracies,  religions,  moralities,  which  are 
valued  as  nothing  more  than  so  many  inventions  to  relieve  the 
laziness  of  men.  There  are  many  who  understand  that  twice 
one  are  two,  and  even  a  few  who  understand  that  twice  two  are 
four,  but  scarce  any  who  understand  that  twelve  times  twelve 
arc  a  hundred  and  forty-four.  They  repeat  it  as  a  formula  ; 
if  you  examine  them  they  will  appeal  to  the  multiplication 
table,  which  is  another  formula  ;  but  they  have  no  idea  of 
their  own  on  the  matter.  Thence  too  it  may  arise  possibly 
that  men  have  invented  and  so  grimly  held  on  to  the  idea  of 
there  being  a  fixed  eternal  order  in  the  world.  Everything 
seems  to  announce  the  reverse,  but  to  believe  that  things  are 
continually  changing,  continually  taking  new  faces  and  requir- 
ing a  new  thought  and  action,  would  be  to  believe  that  men 
ought  to  think  and  act  for  themselves.  And  rather  than  this 
they  will  believe  anything. 

The  strangest  part  of  it  all  is  that,  although  we  thus  strongly 
desire  a  rule,  we  none  of  us  will  ever  thoroughly  submit  to  or 
act  under  it.  If  the  world  were  so  constructed  that  it  had  to 
be  wound  up  every  eight  days  it  would  have  stopped  long  ago. 

I  greatly  doubt  whether  the  real  knowledge  of  things  has  in- 
creased in  the  world,  and  whether  the  progress  of  science — of 
which  we  hear  so  much — amounts  to  anything  more  than  an 
invention  of  new  names  for  the  old  forms  of  ignorance.  We 
once  held  earth,  air,  fire,  and  water  as  terms  sufficient  to  in- 
clude the  whole  material  universe  ;  now  we  have  added  gas, 


FLOTSAM    AND   JETSAM.  *  65 

and  perhaps  we  may  soon  add  the  Odic  force.     But  from  the 

essence  of  things  we  are  as  far  as  ever.     When  any  man  of 

science  can  show  me  so  much  of  the  vital  force  as  to  take  and 

put  it  into  dry  bones  and  make  them  live,  then  I  shall  hold 

that  our  progress  has  got  out  of  the  region  of  names — not 

before. 

****** 

There  were  two  trees  in  the  Garden  of  Eden,  one  of  Life 
and  the  other  of  Knowledge.  Is  this  not  an  assurance  that 
knowledge  is  something  more  than  the  accumulation  of  obser- 
vations which  inevitably  and  surely  come  with  life  ?  Does  it 
not  teach  us  that  every  real  step  in  knowledge  is  reached,  not 
by  putting  one  stone  on  the  top  of  many  others,  but  as  by  rev- 
elation from  that  other  tree  the  fruit  of  which  we  have  not  in- 
herited ?  If  it  be  otherwise — if  it  be  that  true  knowledge 
really  is  nothing  more  than  the  superposition  of  those  kind  of 
stones  of  which  we  all  pick  up  one  or  two  in  the  course  of 
time,  then  there  were  not  two  trees,  but  only  one.  For  sup- 
pose Eve  had  first  eaten  of  the  tree  of  Life,  then  she  would  on 
this  assumption  have  certainly  acquired  the  tree  of  Knowledge 
by  the  mere  eflSux  of  time. 

****** 

"  There  shall  be  one  weight  and  one  measure,^'  declares 
Magna  Charta,  and  this  indeed  is  the  foundation  of  everything. 
Yet  to  this  day  no  two  kind  of  men — scarcely,  indeed,  any  two 
men — can  be  brought  to  use  the  same  weight  and  measure  for 
the  same  admeasurement. 

Professor  Huxley  is  held  to  be  a  clever  man,  yet  he  palpably 
only  cares  to  deal  in  words,  and  has  no  notion  of  the  responsi- 
bility a  teacher  incurs  who  gravely  tosses  them  to  the  world  as 
though  they  were  realities.  "  In  the  early  part  of  the  last 
century,"  he  says,  "  Society  was  in  a  state  of  corruption — 
bribery  was  the  means  of  Government,  and  peculation  was  its 
reward.  Four  fifths  of  the  seats  in  the  House  of  Commons 
were  notoriously  for  sale  in  one  shape  or  another" — and  so 
forth.     He  then  compares  the  present  state  of  things,  which  he 


66  FLOTSAM   AND  JETSAM. 

declares  to  be  "  in  many  obvious  respects  far  better  tban  tbat." 
Surely  a  clever  man  standing  up  to  say  something  ought  to  be 
able  to  say  something  better  than  this.  If  Professor  Huxley 
really  thinks  that  Society  is  not  now  corrupt,  it  can  only  be 
because  he  does  not  know  it,  and  because  those  who  do  know 
it  will  not  speak  out  in  this  generation.  Bribery  is  not  less 
than  it  was  the  means  of  Government  ;  the  only  difference  is 
that  the  form  of  the  bribery  has  changed,  while  the  bribe  itself 
has  been  made  more  magnificent,  being  nothing  less  than  irre- 
sponsible power  in  England.  Moreover  the  chiefs  have  found 
means  to  keep  the  whole  prize  themselves  ;  and  instead  of  giv- 
ing their  followers  money  down,  they  pay  them  in  promises. 
The  rank  and  file,  no  doubt,  now  get  nothing  or  next  to  noth- 
ing, but  if  they  are  not  bought,  it  is  only  because  they  are  not 
worth  buying,  being  so  easy  to  bamboozle.  As  to  the  seats  in 
the  House  of  Commons  not  being  now  for  sale,  if  Professor 
Huxley  will  produce  any  incarnation  of  supreme  wisdom — say 
himself — to  any  constituency,  and  get  him  elected  without 
money,  or  "  influence,"  or  "party" — all  which,  be  it  remem- 
bered, involve  sale  "  in  one  shape  or  another" — then  I  will 
cheerfully  and  thankfully  agree  with  him. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

CowES,  10th  August. 
"  I  ALWAYS  speak  of  people  as  I  find  them"  strikes  me  as 
being  about  the  most  selfish  and  cowardly  excuse  that  ever 
stole  the  garb  of  generosity.  It  amounts  to  this  :  that  for  me 
there  is  to  be  no  such  creature  as  a  thief  who  has  not  stolen 
my  property,  no  traitor  who  has  not  betrayed  me,  no  perjurer 
who  has  not  forsworn  himself  to  me,  no  adulterer  who  has  not 
run  away  with  my  wife,  no  wickedness  in  the  world  at  all  un- 
less I  have  suffered  by  it ;  that,  in  short,  I  am  bound  to  sell 


FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM.  67 

myself  to  the  Father  of  Lies,  and  lie  about  all  men  knowingly 
— about  all  men,  unless  they  have  redeemed  me  from  the 
necessity  of  so  doing  by  inflicting  upon  me  some  injury  which 
justifies  me  in  avenging  myself  by  telling  the  truth  about 
them.  Rather  it  seems  to  me  should  we  beware  of  people  as 
we  find  them,  for  that  is  usually  as  they  are  not.  Claude 
Duval  once  danced  a  minuet  on  Hounslow  Heath,  yet  many 
would  be  surprised  if  he  were  to  be  spoken  of  as  an  excellent 
dancer  and  no  highwayman.  For  he  is  dead  and  gone,  and  it 
is  only  of  the  living  that  we  are  expected  to  tell  lies. 

And  now  what  terrible  retribution  will  overtake  some  who 
are  now  living  in  this  false  atmosphere  with  the  pleasant  belief 
that  the  truth  will  never  be  known  of  them  !  There  is  cer- 
tainly at  this  moment  some  Due  de  St.  Simon  or  some  Walpole 
calmly  and  secretly  taking  notes,  hereafter  to  be  published,  of 
these  men  and  things  that  we  have  about  us.  How  the  readers 
of  those  notes  will  despise  us  ;  how  they  will  wonder  that  no 
hint  of  the  truth  ever  escaped  while  such  strange  things  as  they 
will  learn  were  actually  being  enacted  ;  how  they  will  admire 
the  reticence  of  those  who  knew  them  and  who  yet  said  no 
word  ! 

You  can  get  eight  knots  an  hour  out  of  anything  ;  I  have 
got  that  much  even  out  of  the  Billy  Baby.  It  is  when  you 
come  to  the  extra  speed  that  you  meet  the  difiiculty.  The 
Alberta  will  steam  thirteen  knots  with  one  boiler,  but  if  now 
her  second  boiler  be  brought  into  play  and  the  power  thus  ex- 
actly doubled,  it  is  as  much  as  she  can  do  to  add  another  two 
knots  to  the  thirteen. 

Anybody  will  be  indifferent  honest  ;  but  to  be  anything 
beyond  demands  a  power  of  which  few  are  possessed.  I  know 
many  a  man  who  would  not  be  mean  or  ungenerous  for  money, 
few  who  would  not  for  favor  ;  many  women  I  know  who  will 
hate  you  for  yourself,  very  few  who  will  love  you  for  nothing 
else.  Few  of  us  can  be  tempted  to  do  that  which  we  hold  to 
be  wrong  by  that  which  we  don't  want — those  who  cannot  be 


68  FLOTSAM    AND   JETSAM. 

tempted  by  that  which  they  do  want  are  honest.  He  who  fears 
not  death  is  no  hero,  he  who  seeks  it  is  no  martyr  ;  yet  there 
have  been  heroes  and  martyrs — most  of  them  unknown  for 
such. 

%  4c  9ic  lie  4c  i|c 

11th  August. 

We  have  had  for  the  last  week  "  wind  enough  to  blow  the 
devil's  horns  off,"  as  Ned  says,  and  there  is  enough  at  this 
present  time  to  carry  off  his  tail  along  with  them,  nor  do 
tilings  seem  likely  to  get  better  until  they  have  been  worse. 
Dresses  are  either  ruined  or,  what  amounts  to  the  same  thing, 
are  kept  out  of  sight  ;  expeditions  round  the  island  are  post- 
poned, and  persons  of  the  highest  distinction  are  gravely  in- 
convenienced because  no  means  have  yet  been  found  of 
thoroughly  controlling  and  laughing  at  winds  and  waves,  and 
because  rain  still  continues  to  wet  that  which  it  touches,  acting 
precisely  as  wind,  waves,  and  rain  may  be  presumed  to  have 
done  in  the  uncivilized  Garden  of  Eden. 

What,  then,  if  we  were  all  poor  things  after  all,  and  small 
specks  dusted,  as  it  were,  into  the  great  machinery  of  this  uni- 
verse ?  When  I  see  Royal  Standards  hoisted  at  the  main  of 
the  Osborne  and  the  winds  and  the  waves  taking  no  notice, 
I  have  a  fearful  misgiving  and  suspicion  that  after  all  it  may 
be  so.  If  there  are  powers  at  work  in  this  respect  which  are 
above  and  beyond  us,  and  which  we  cannot  anyhow  reach  or 
influence,  why,  there  may  also  be  in  other  respects.  Were  it 
not  then  possible  to  suppose  that  even  these  specks  obey  some 
higher  rule  than  that  of  some  other  speck  equally  subject  to  ii 
— neither  of  them  perhaps  knowing  any  more  whence  it  comes 
or  whither  it  tends  than  they  know  of  the  winds  ?  Were  it 
not  possible  to  imagine  that  when  they  make  projects  of 
authority,  of  submission  or  what  not,  they  are  still  and  must 
be  unable  to  carry  them  into  effect,  save  as  the  unknown  rule 
may  allow  ?  What  if  we  were  all  pretending  to  do  that  which 
we  cannot  in  fact  do  ?  Would  it  be  true  wisdom  to  allow  an 
Almighty  Power  in  the  winds  because  they  are  strong  enough 


FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM.  69 

to  blow,  and  to  disallow  it  in  the  mind  and  conscience  of  men 
because  they  are  strong  enough  to  deceive  ? 

12th  August. 

1  have  been  assured  many  times  that  the  moon  has  nothing 
to  do  with  the  weather,  but  I  don't  think  anything  will  ever 
make  me  believe  it,  and  I  have  made  up  my  mind  that  to-day's 
moon  is  to  bring  us  an  improvement  on  the  very  dirty  state  of 
things  we  have  had  for  the  Cowes  week. 

There  are  some  things  that  you  may  prove  to  demonstration, 
and  never  get  them  really  to  be  accepted,  for  we  only  believe 
what  we  can,  and  what  we  can  believe  we  believe  in  spite  of 
all  evidence.  Indeed,  the  things  that  are  most  thoroughly 
believed  arc  those  that  have  the  most  evidence  against  them. 
The  selfishness  of  man,  the  worth  of  money,  the  value  of 
power,  the  place  of  self  in  the  centre  of  the  universe,  the 
supremacy  of  Chance,  the  blindness  of  the  Almighty,  are  all 
notions  the  belief  in  which  can  be  easily  shown  to  be  false  and 
ridiculous  ;  yet  upon  them  men  every  day  stake  their  whole 
life,  which  is  a  much  better  way  of  showing  that  they  believe  a 
thing  than  merely  saying  so. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

Co  WES,  15th  August. 
In  itself  there  is  nothing  so  delightful,  or  even  so  improving, 
as  communion  with  one's  kind.  Merely  to  look  at  men  and 
women  is  a  great  pleasure  in  itself — to  look  at  them  under  the 
favorable  circumstances  of  evening  light,  careful  dress,  and 
lawful  behavior,  and  withal  to  converse  with  some  of  them, 
even  if  it  be  in  mere  prattle,  is  a  still  greater  pleasure.  And 
yet  means  have  been  found  to  render  it  the  greatest  trouble  and 
the  most  tiresome  business  on  earth,  so  that  any  decently  intel- 


70  FLOTSAM   AND  JETSAM. 

ligent  creature  will  readily  prefereven  solitude  to  society.  Wo 
know  each  other  far  too  little,  only  just  enough  to  hate  each 
other  with  diflSculty,  not  enough  to  love  each  other  with  ease  ; 
which  we  are  certain  to  do  on  anything  over  five  minutes'  ac- 
quaintance. 

****** 

I7th  August. 

The  charm  of  seafaring,  even  when  pursued  in  my  pottering 
ignoble  coasting  way,  is  that  for  a  man  who  has  serious  work 
on  hand  that  he  can  take  with  him  (and  most  serious  work  can 
be  taken  with  one,  for  it  is  not  a  matter  of  machinery,  but  of 
thought)  it  offers  a  continual  variety  of  employment.  At  sea 
you  have  your  navigation  and  seamanship  to  think  of,  and  must 
think  of  them  to  the  exclusion  of  all  else  under  pain  of  coming 
to  grief;  in  port  you  can  settle  down  again  to  your  serious 
work  with  the  knowledge  that  there  will  be  nothing  to  interrupt 
or  interfere  with  you  till  you  telegraph  for  your  letters. 

The  English  system  of  working  and  resting  by  extremes 
seems  to  me  very  bad  and  very  unwise.  To  think  that  men 
can  work  at  the  very  highest  pressure  all  the  days  of  the  year, 
and  that  they  can  be  refreshed  and  remade  by  a  few  Bank 
Holidays  devoted  to  eight  hours  at  the  seaside,  is  a  delusion. 
Far  better  would  it  be  if  the  holidays  were  spread  over  the 
whole  days  of  the  year.  The  result  of  working  time  would 
be  the  same,  the  increase  of  working  power  would  be  enor- 
mous. For  where  you  have  overdrawn  on  a  man's  energy, 
you  cannot  balance  the  account  by  placing  on  the  credit  side  a 
lump  sum  of  idleness.  That  is  as  though  we  should  eat  ex- 
clusively for  six  months,  and  drink  exclusively  for  the  other 
six  months  of  the  year.  What  man  requires  is  not  an  infrequent 
alternation  of  work  and  play,  but  a  frequent  alternation  of  oc- 
cupations, each  of  which  shall  be  work  in  itself  and  play  to  the 
other.  The  excursion-trains  are  to  me  only  so  many  melan- 
choly proofs  that  the  English  people  at  large  have  not  learned 
to  provide  themselves  with  those  recreative  occupations  which  are 
accessible  in  one  shape  or  another  to  the  meanest  and  the  poor- 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM.  71 

est.  ■  If  they  had,  they  would  not  be  driven  to  such  a  wretched 
device  for  filling  their  holidays  as  a  whirl  from  one  place  to  an- 
other, and  a  whirl  back.  They  learn  nothing  by  it,  they  enjoy 
nothing,  and  they  add  nothing  to  themselves  morally  or  physi- 
cally. As  for  ' '  fresh  air, ' '  that  is  a  mere  delusion  invented  by 
enterprising  directors,  for  it  may  be  had  as  fresh  in  Kensing- 
ton Gardens  or  on  Hampstead  Heath  as  anywhere  in  the  world. 
****** 

August  18. 
The  Sunday  is  a  shockingly  misrepresented  day  with  us. 
People  seem  to  imagine  that  those  particular  twenty-four 
hours  which  are  embraced  in  that  name  have  a  character  and 
claims  different  from  other  hours,  as  though  we  had  been  told 
that  the  Sabbath-day  was  in  itself  holy,  instead  of  being  told 
to  *'  keep"  it  holy,  which  is  very  different  and  more  difficult. 
If  there  were  anything  holy  in  the  Sabbath  itself,  it  is  manifest 
that  the  apostles  could  not  have  ventured  to  change  its  incidence 
as  they  did  from  Saturday  to  Sunday,  nor  should  we  have  learned 
that  it  was  made  for  man  and  not  man  for  it.  The  real  truth 
about  it  is  that  we  are  bound  in  an  especial  manner  to  do  on 
that  day  the  duty  which  we  are  also  bound  to  do  on  other 
days,  and  especially  to  keep  ourselves  in  a  sense  of  the  higher 
law,  which  we  should  never  forget.  The  real  Sabbath-breaker 
is  the  man  who  premeditatedly  seeks  to  lower  his  intelligence 
and  to  brutalize  himself  by  absolute  inaction  ;  the  true  Sab- 
bath-keeper is  he  who  so  uses  the  first  day  of  the  week  as  to  fit 
himself  more  trnly  for  the  work  of  the  succeeding  six.  The 
man  of  sordid  occupations  should  then  seek  to  elevate  his  ideas 
by  any  means  that  are  at  hand,  whether  by  church,  by  private 
devotion,  or  the  improving  converse  of  friends.  For  the  con- 
verse of  friends  well  chosen  is  perhaps  the  most  elevating 
agency  in  life,  which  is  one  reason  why  we  should  all  be  care- 
ful so  to  choose  them  on  week-days  that  they  shall  be  available 

for  Sundays. 

****** 

We  were  discussing  the  weather  this  morning,  and  wonder- 


72  FLOTSAM   AND  JETSAM. 

ing  whether  of  the  two,  the  sky  which  looked  threatening,  or 
the  barometer  which  was  most  encouraging,  would  prove  right. 
Some  of  the  best  weather  prophets  were  of  one  opinion,  some 
of  another,  until  at  last  a  mere  boatman  declared  with  an  un- 
wavering tone  of  authority,  that  "  it  was  all  for  fine  weather." 
Upon  which  all  the  prophets  at  once  put  to  sea. 

The  wise  men  make  the  fools.  For  whenever  a  fool  comes 
to  look  at  a  wise  man,  he  finds  so  little  difference  between  that 
man  and  himself  that  it  seems  barely  worth  while  to  seek  for 
wisdom.  And  when  he  comes  to  look  at  two  wise  men  and 
finds  that  all  their  wisdom  only  makes  them  disagree  the  more, 
then  he  feels  certain  that  the  only  safety  lies  in  absolute  folly. 
But  if  now  he  lights  upon  a  wise  man  either  not  wise  enough 
or  not  honest  enough  to  admit  that  he,  too,  is  fallible,  then  the 
fool  will  stand  by  him  to  the  death. 

****** 

I  remember  to  have  seen  somewhere  the  remark  that  since  in 
all  honest  proceedings  the  child,  the  madman,  and  the  absent 
are  always  allowed,  when  their  interests  are  at  stake,  to  be  rep- 
resented by  a  person  required  to  act  not  upon  their  judgment 
but  upon  his  own,  therefore  "  the  people,"  which  is  always  at 
once  childish,  mad,  and  absent,  ought  really  to  be  allowed  no 
influence  over  the  acts  of  their  representative.  And  this  is 
true.  And  what  must,  therefore,  be  equally  true  is  that  when 
the  people  themselves  choose  one  to  represent  them,  he  is  not 
unlikely  to  be  as  they  are,  either  childish,  mad,  or  absent,  when 
their  interests  arc  at  stake.  We  must  be  a  wonderful  nation 
whose  representatives  are  never  either  one  of  those  three. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

St.  Peter's,  Guernset,  20th  August. 
I  THINK  I  never  conceived  so  great  a  disgust  for  any  place 
as,  upon  my  first  view,  I  have  for  this.     I  believe  I  am  not 


FLOTSAM  AKD  JETSAM.  73 

difficult  to  please.  I  do  not  hate  Ratcliff  Highway,  I  am  posi- 
tively fond  of  Wapping,  and  even  the  region  of  Belgrave 
Square  has  some  pleasant  memories  for  me.  But  this  place  is 
merely  revolting,  and  though  I  have  been  here  barely  two 
hours,  I  have  seen  more  vulgarity  without  manliness,  more  ve- 
nality without  object,  more  immodesty  without  passion,  than  I 
should  have  thought  existed  anywhere — the  whole  utterly  un- 
redeemed by  any  spark  of  those  higher  fires  which  sometimes 
sweeten  the  most  ignoble  smoulderings.  My  disgust  began  be- 
fore I  set  foot  on  the  shore.  Of  course,  in  a  place  where  the 
paternal  system  of  compulsory  pilotage  exists,  I  knew  I  should 
never  get  a  pilot.  No  one  of  us  on  board  the  Billy  Baby  had 
ever  been  near  the  Channel  Islands  before,  so  to  ease  my  con- 
science I  hoisted  my  jack,  and  positively  when  I  had  blun- 
dered in  my  own  way  through  the  Little  Russel  and  was  in  the 
act  of  dropping  my  anchor  in  these  roads,  a  creature  had  the 
assurance  to  board  me  and  to  announce  that  he  was  the^  pilot. 
I  promptly  showed  him  over  the  side,  and  was  doubly  aggrieved 
to  find  that  he  had  not  self-respect  enough  even  to  fight  the 
question,  and  that  he  proposed  I  should  "  give  him  a  trifle" 
and  say  no  more  about  it.  Then  I  went  ashore,  and  was  im- 
mediately confronted  by  the  most  incredible  statue  of  a  gentle- 
man in  the  short  trunks,  silk  tights,  and  buff  boots  of  a  trans- 
pontine villain,  inscribed  "  Albert,  Prince  Consort,"  just  as 
though  one  should  write  "Blanc-Bee,  Esquire";  then  I  was 
reduced  to  dine  at  an  hotel,  and  I  was  more  hurt  than  ever  to 
find  that  the  repast  was  provided  for  and  with  creatures  who 
comported  themselves  precisely  in  the  same  way  as  though  they 
had  been  fashionable  London  people  feeding  themselves  through 
two  hours  of  boredom.  I  thought  as  I  looked  at  them  how 
exactly  I  could  match  them  all  out  of  the  superior  circles,  and 
in  the  end  I  left  them  just  as  one  linen  draper's  assistant  was 
beginning,  under  the  influence  of  bottled  stout,  to  thaw  to  the 
other  ;  only  to  find,  on  returning  to  my  ship,  that  it  has 
already  been  invaded  by  touts  for  the  sale  of  every  kind  of 
contraband  produce  under  the  sun.     I  shall  not  stay  here  long. 


74  FLOTSAM   AKD   JETSAM. 

St.  Peter's,  2l8t  August. 

The  Little  Russel,  if  we  had  no  chart  of  it,  is  a  charming, 
picturesque  channel  at  higli  water,  but  when  the  tide  is  out,  to 
see  all  those  terrible  jagged  rocks  appear,  and  to  remember  how 
one  came  past  them  with  a  four- knot  tide,  suggests  to  one  a 
notion  of  the  day  of  judgment  in  a  very  lively  manner. 

If  any  ten  men  in  London  were  to  tell  all  they  knew,  they 
would  blow  the  roofs  off  half  the  houses  in  Mayfair.  Let  any- 
body hold  the  frightful  review  of  the  secrets  that  have  come 
across  him  in  the  course  of  even  a  short  and  ordinary  life,  and 
think  what  would  be  the  result  if  only  one  or  two  of  them 
were  known  as  he  knows  them,  and  he  will  admire  the  power 
of  absolute  forgetfulness  shown  by  people  who  bear  themselves 
as  though  there  were  no  secrets  in  the  world.  Nor,  indeed, 
are  there  so  long  as  they  remain  secrets  ;  but  it  is  terrible  to 
think  how  many  there  are  whose  whole  existence  hangs  upon 
the  safe  custody  of  a  letter  or  the  tongue  of  a  servant. 
****** 

Jersey,  22d  August. 

Ned  lay  aloft  this  morning  in  a  strong  wind  and  a  nasty  sea 
to  lace  the  topsail  to  the  mast,  and  Tom  and  Bill  were  so  un- 
handy at  the  halyards  that  he  got  into  trouble  with  the  sail  be- 
fore he  had  laced  two  holes.  He  shouted  to  them  again  and 
again  ;  they  did  less  and  less  what  was  required,  and  at  last  he, 
with  blundering  which  is  the  mark  of  a  smart  man,  dived  head- 
long into  a  sea  of  very  strong  imprecations  affecting  their  eyes 
and  their  morality.  This  moved  them  and  relieved  him,  and 
in  two  minutes  more  the  topsail  was  laced. 

****** 

Of  all  the  developments  of  faith,  I  think  there  is  none  at  all 
comparable  to  the  belief  that  every  man  has  in  his  own  ship. 
There  never  was  and  never  will  be  such  a  vessel  on  the  seas  as 
this  particular  one  that  he  commands  or  sails  in.  Its  merits 
are  greater  merits  of  a  greater  kind  than  ever  before  were 
known  ;  its  defects  are  only  so  many  merits  in  disguise.     She  is 


FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM.  t5 

not  a  good  sea-boat,  but  tbe  pace  she  sails  is  incredible  ;  she  is 
not  fast,  but  she  would  drown  a  good  many  of  them  in  a  bad 
sea  ;  she  won't  hang  to  wind,  but  none  of  them  can  touch  her 
running  ;  she  doesn't  run  very  well,  but  she'll  turn  to  wind- 
ward in  a  way  that  would  surprise  you — and  so  forth.  I  over- 
heard Ned  imparting  to  a  Guernsey  fisherman,  in  a  careless 
way,  the  information  that  we  generally  got  eight  or  ten  knots 
out  of  the  Billy  Baby,  and  that  we  had  never  taken  a  pint  of 
water  on  board,  though  we  had  been  out  in  every  kind  of 
weather.  I  can  quite  understand  the  men  who  went  to  sea  on 
a  slab  of  marble.  I  am  sure  they  held  it  for  the  finest  craft 
that  ever  floated. 

Beliefs,  I  take  it,  are  originated  never  in  evidence,  nor  even 
on  what  are  called  reasonable  grounds,  but  solely  in  their  ap- 
parent profit.  I  believe  in  this  woman  because  I  love  her,  and 
I  don't  believe  in  any  other,  because  I  love  no  other.  I  be- 
lieve in  my  ship  because  I  sail  in  her,  and  don't  like  to  think 
she  will  go  with  me  to  the  bottom.  In  each  and  every  case  the 
necessity  or  the  desire  for  the  belief  is  the  foundation  of  it. 
If  there  were  any  apparent  pleasure  or  profit  to  be  derived  from 
believing  that  the  sun  went  round  the  earth,  we  should  all  be- 
lieve it  most  thoroughly. 

****** 

St.  Helier's,  Jersey,  22d  August. 
*'  Which  do  you  prefer,  Jersey  or  Guernsey  ?" 
"  I  have  only  been  to  Guernsey,  and  I  prefer  Jersey." 
Something  of  this  kind  must,  I  imagine,  be  at  the  bottom  of 
the  preference  entertained  by  many  reasonable  men  for  infinite 
as  compared   with  finite  existence.     They  only  know  time, 
and  so  they  prefer  eternity.  Perhaps,  if  somebody  were  to  come 
back  from  eternity,  they  would  prefer  time. 

Thus  I  said  yesterday,  but  now  having  come  to  Jersey,  I 
prefer  Guernsey.  On  the  whole,  if  it  were  not  for  the  excite- 
ment of  picking  up  unknown  rocks  from  the  chart  and  the 
jumps  involved  in  the  chance  of  being  contrariwise  picked  up 


70  FLOTSAM   AKD   JETSAM. 

hy  them,  it  would  not  be  worth  while  to  make  the  acquaint- 
ance of  the  Channel  Islands  even  without  a  pilot.  They  seem 
to  be  the  resort  of  the  British  rough,  the  rendezvous  of  the  un- 
relieved excursionist,  and  the  home  of  the  drunkard.  There  is 
a  statue  of  one  of  the  Georges  out  of  his  shirt-sleeves  ;  there 
are  the  cheapest  and  nastiest  cigars,  spirits,  and  walking-sticks 
in  Europe  ;  there  are  soldier-oflScers  in  uniform  and  jaunting- 
cars  making  perpetual  tours  round  the  island.  If  Tottenham 
Court  Road  were  swept  into  one  basket  together  with  Seven 
Dials,  the  Haymarket,  Plymouth  Hard,  and  the  Boulevard  des 
Batignolles,  and  the  whole  were  emptied  on  the  nearest  rock 
off  the  coast  of  Spain,  the  result  would  be  Jersey.  It  is  the 
kind  of  place  to  which  a  philosopher  might  come  to  drink  him- 
self to  death  at  slight  expense  and  without  any  risk  of  regret- 
ting those  he  left  behind.  As  for  getting  to  it,  the  coast  is  so 
stuck  about  with  rocks  and  the  tides  run  so  strong  and  so  many 
ways  at  once,  that  nothing  but  a  most  thorough  contempt  for 
the  works  of  nature  could  give  anything  like  confidence  among 
them. 


CHAPTER   XVII. 

Anse  du  Solidor,  St.  Malo,  25th  August,  1874.' 
As  the  only  available  pilot  for  St.  Malo  to  be  had  in  Jersey 
was  incapably  drunk,  and  likely  to  remain  so  for  several  days, 
I  was  in  any  case  under  the  necessity  of  finding  my  own  way 
here.  I  had  no  chart  of  the  port  large  enough  to  be  of  any 
use,  but  I  succeeded  at  last  in  buying  an  old  one  at  a  Jersey 
public-house.  Its  one  recommendation  was  that  it  only  cost 
sixpence,  and  that,  although  fifty-two  years  old,  it  was  certain 
to  be  good  for  everything  except  new  marks,  since  rocks  don't 
alter  like  sands.  Armed  with  this  I  left  St.  Helier's  at  high- 
water,  came  round  the  Minquiers,   which  even  at  that  time 


FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM.  77 

showed  black  heads  enough  above  water  to  frighten  one,  and 
at  last  found  myself  outside  that  insane  puzzle  of  rocks  which 
makes  St.  Malo  so  difficult  of  approach.  What  with  the 
Couchees,  the  Plate,  the  Pierre  aux  Normands,  the  Roche  aux 
Anglais,  the  Crapauds  du  Bey,  and  some  hundreds  of  other 
rocks,  all  newly  marked,  and  all  therefore  only  to  be  avoided 
by  compass-bearings  and  allowance  for  the  set  of  the  tide,  we 
passed  rather  an  excited  hour  while  winding  our  way  through  ; 
but  the  pleasure  of  getting  through  and  of  letting  go  the  anchor 
in  this  charming  little  corner  was  but  the  greater,  and  the  more 
calculated  to  make  one  forswear  all  pilots  and  their  works  for 
all  time  to  come.  On  examination  I  find  that  five  new  lights 
have  been  lit  and  some  sixty  new  marks  laid  down  since  my 
chart  was  printed  ;  and  herein  I  recognize  the  constant  policy 
of  pilotage  authorities  in  all  countries — which  is  to  be  continu- 
ally changing  the  marks  as  much  as  possible,  so  that  none  but 
their  own  experts  shall  know  them.  Their  principle  is  that  a 
stranger  who  doesn't  take  one  of  their  pilots  deserves  to  be 

lost. 

****** 

AxsE  DU  SoLiDOR,  26th  August. 
St.  Malo  is,  I  think,  of  all  the  towns  I  have  seen,  that  which 
has  most  completely  preserved  the  character  of  the  Middle 
Ages.  You  have  but  to  look  at  it  from  the  roads  to  see  that 
it  is  the  work  of  a  hardy  race,  obstinate,  laborious,  narrow- 
minded,  believing,  and  pugnacious.  The  massive  walls  and 
quaint  towers  which  gird  the  little  rock-island  on  which  it  stands 
would  make  Von  Moltke  smile,  and  would  even  have  been  de- 
spised by  Vauban  ;  but  they  are  the  enduring  record  of  men 
who  had  more  faith  in  what  they  did  than  to  look  merely  to  its 
overthrow,  of  men  who  built  not  in  days  for  years,  but  in  years 
for  centuries.  They  loved  their  home  too,  for  they  crowded 
the  houses  on  the  narrow  rock  one  above  the  other — one  upon 
the  other,  one  might  almost  say — and  rather  than  leave  it, 
piled  story  upon  story,  till  hands  could  be  shaken  across  the 
narrow  streets  at  break-neck  height.     It  is  a  living  bit  of  Cal- 


78  FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM. 

lot.  And  when  you  enter  the  town,  you  feel  as  though  you 
had  left  three  centuries  behind  you.  The  almost  entire  ab- 
sence of  wheeled  traffic,  the  blessed  want  of  gas-glare,  plate- 
glass  and  articles  de  Paris,  the  deep  tortuous  streets,  the  sur- 
prising irregular  corners  and  the  impossible  differences  of  level, 
belong  so  entirely  to  other  times  that  one  expects  at  every  turn 
to  meet  a  company  of  partisans,  a  guild  of  artisans,  or  a  bevy 
of  richer  burghers  not  ashamed  to  wear  finer  clothes  than  the 
rabble,  and  to  hear  the  question  discussed  whether  the  Malouins 
had  not  best  sally  forth  against  the  English  trader,  or  whether 
they  should  abandon  the  League  for  Henri  IV.  There  are  few 
persons  of  fashion  or  pretence  to  be  seen,  there  are  no  big  new 
hotels,  and  everybody  appears  to  go  to  bed  at  nine  o'clock,  for 
by  that  time  the  streets  are  deserted.  Add  to  this  that  the  peo- 
ple are  ugly,  and  it  becomes  manifest  that  St.  Malo  is  a  very 
chosen  spot. 

****** 

St.  Malo,  26th  August. 
I  find  that  the  great  dainty  here  is  our  old  friend  the  dreaded 
pieuvre  or  octopus.  It  is  known  to  the  Malouins  as  the  "  Mi- 
nard,"  and  at  this  time  of  year,  when  he  has  grown  to  a  con- 
siderable size,  it  is  the  great  amusement  of  the  boys  to  hunt 
him.  I  saw  two  caught  to-day  on  the  rocks,  and  was  not  a  lit- 
tle edified  to  discover  that  in  spite  of  Victor  Hugo  the  boys 
were  not  in  the  least  afraid  to  handle  the  ugly  monster.  They 
fish  him  out  of  the  water  with  a  boat-hook,  and  then — tearing 
him  away  from  the  boat,  to  which  he  clings  with  all  his  suck- 
ers— plunge  their  hand  into  the  middle  of  him,  and  in  the 
twinkling  of  an  eye  turn  his  peculiar  membranous  bag  inside 
out.  The  effect  of  this  is  to  render  him  instantly  powerless, 
and  thenceforth  they  handle  him  without  fear  of  his  strong  bird- 
like beak,  and  dash  him  to  death  against  the  rocks.  Then  hav- 
ing washed  him  clean  of  the  inky  liquid  with  which  he  troubles 
the  water  when  fishing  on  his  own  account,  they  beat  him  to  a 
jelly,  peel  off  the  dark  skin,  cook  him  with  vinegar,  and  eat 
bim  cold  like  a  lobster^  or  even  pickle  Wm  for  the  winter.     He 


FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM.  79 

is  esteemed  a  very  great  delicacy  ;  so  mucli  so  that  his  market 
price  is  five  sous,  which  is  a  large  sum  in  these  parts.  I  am 
told  that  he  is  when  alive  particularly  fond  of  shell-fish,  which 
he  breaks  open  and  eats  with  his  powerful  beak,  and  that  by  the 
end  of  the  summer  he  is  often  found  with  limbs  three  or  four 
feet  long.  No  doubt  he  leads  a  fine,  lawless,  filibustering  life  ; 
and  no  doubt,  too,  that  he  is  held  for  a  very  gallant,  handsome 
fellow  by  the  females  of  his  kind,  who,  if  one  could  but  get  at 
their  sentiments,  would  probably  regard  men  as  the  most  loath- 
some creatures  of  the  universe. 

In  the  greater  number  of  cases  of  love-making  between  any 
two  given  people  it  will  be  found  that  one  of  the  two  has  no 
kind  of  reasonable  excuse  for  being  in  love  at  all.  And  it  will 
commonly  also  be  found,  if  the  history  of  the  affair  be  exam- 
ined, that  that  one  has  indeed  not  fallen  in  love,  but  has  merely 
become  reconciled  to  the  other,  sometimes  even  in  mere  self- 
defence — just  as  one  would  become  reconciled  to  the  Chimoera 
if  one  had  one's  attention  fixed  by  it  for  a  certain  time.  Put 
any  dull  man  and  woman  together  in  a  dull  place,  and  the 
duller  one  of  the  two  will  certainly  make  advances  for  the  mere 
occupation  ;  whereupon  the  less  dull  must  either  fly  or  else  first 
notice,  then  endure,  and  finally  be  reconciled,  however  bad  the 
bargain  may  be.  There  is  no  other  history  than  this  of  love- 
making  of  any  ordinary  type. 

****** 

DiNAN,  August  28. 
Dinan  is  even  more  striking,  more  picturesque,  and  more 
thoroughly  smacking  of  the  Middle  Ages  than  St.  Malo.  The 
monasteries,  some  ruined  and  some  converted  to  new  uses,  the 
walls  turned  into  gardens,  the  tortuous  lanes,  full  of  fifteenth- 
century  houses,  shallow-storied,  and  pushing  their  massive  carved 
beams  into  the  street  over  deep  porticos,  the  beetling  tower- 
crowned  heights  plunging  down  clean  into  the  depth  where  the 
Kance  is  embroidered  like  a  silver  thread  on  a  green  bed  of 
yerdure,  thQ  homely  dress  and  manners — nay,  the  very  purity 


80  FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM. 

and  price  of  butter  and  bread — all  announce  a  favored  spot  not 
yet  deflowered  by  the  railway.  It  is  just  the  place  where  a 
tired  man  would  love  to  rest,  and  to  plant  himself  down  never 
to  move  again. 

I  learn  that  the  agricultural  laborers  about  here  eat  meat 
daily.  A  common  shipwright,  who  has  repaired  my  boat,  tells 
me  that  his  father  paid  a  hundred  pounds  to  buy  him  off  from 
the  army  when  he  drew  a  mauvais  numero.  Now,  we  know 
that  the  laborers  of  Essex  and  Suffolk  scarcely  ever  see  meat ; 
and  we  know,  too,  that  there  are  no  shipwrights  in  England 
whose  fathers  could  produce  a  hundred  pounds.  Manifestly, 
therefore,  there  must  be  something  very  wicked  and  opposed 
to  the  designs  of  Providence  in  a  country  capable  of  producing 
phenomena  so  entirely  against  the  order  of  nature.  Probably 
that  is  why  all  England  does  not  come  to  settle  at  Dinan. 

****** 

St.  Malo,  29th  August. 

A  curdled  sky  and  mares'  tails 
Make  lofty  ships  carry  low  sails, 

is  a  saw  I  much  respect,  and  I  was  somewhat  exercised  on 
going  on  deck  at  six  this  morning  to  find,  although  there  was 
then  but  a  moderate  breeze  blowing,  a  very  thick  curdle  man- 
tling up  from  the  south-west,  and  all  the  overhead  clouds  torn 
into  fine  hair-like  wisps  drawn  away  in  various  directions,  a.s 
though  the  firmament  had  been  cross-hatched  with  delicate 
brushes.  I  had  intended  to  start  with  the  first  of  the  ebb  ;  but 
seeing  this,  and  seeing,  too,  that  the  glass  had  fallen  nearly 
two  tenths,  I  so  far  temporized  as  to  go  ashore  and  buy  pro- 
visions. By  seven  the  wind  had  considerably  increased.  I 
learned,  moreover,  that  a  schooner  which  went  out  yesterday 
was  forced  to  put  back,  and  reports  very  bad  weather  and  much 
sea  outside,  added  to  which  we  are  at  the  worst  of  the  spring- 
tides, which  having  here  a  rise  and  fall  of  forty  feet,  and  a  ve- 
locity of  from  four  to  seven  knots  in  all  directions  at  once,  are 
pot  to  be  trifled  with.  Finally,  to  decide  the  matter,  it  has  begun 


FLOTSAM    A'SD   JETSAM.  81 

to  rain  in  torrents,  which  renders  everything  invisible  ;  and  it 
is  therefore  with  the  most  self-approving  conviction  of  being 
quite  right  that  I  resolve  to  give  it  another  day  or  two,  all  the 
more  so  that  this  is  the  most  delightful  of  anchorages,  in  which 
it  must  be  a  real  pleasure  to  ride  out  a  good  blow. 

I  can  quite  understand  that  continually  recurring  phenomenon 
of  men  going  calmly  to  be  lianged,  when  once  it  has  been  de- 
cided beyond  hope  of  recall  that  they  are  to  be  hanged.  The 
disquieting  period  in  all  matters  is  the  period  of  indecision  ; 
but  when  once  you  have  made  up  your  mind  to  a  given  course, 
no  matter  how  disagreeable  that  course  may  be,  you  are  happy. 
That  is  probably  what  makes  us  all  so  eager  to  run  into  the 
first  decision  at  hand,  rather  than  face  the  wear  and  tear  and 
worry  of  thinking  over  all  the  decisions  possible,  until  we  have 
arrived  at  the  best.  And  yet  philosophers  and  moralists  who 
preach,  nay,  and  even  novelists  who  describe,  all  affect  to  deal 
with  men  and  to  treat  of  them  as  though  they  were  reasonable 
creatures,  who  thought  out  everything  to  the  bottom,  and  acted 
upon  a  calm  selection  of  courses. 


St.  Malo,  30th  August. 
I  saw  to-day  a  blind  man  led  by  a  dog  passing  through  the 
crowd  of  holiday-makers,  and  asking  in  a  piteous  song  for  char- 
ity. He  was  a  terrible  spectacle,  miserable  beyond  expression; 
and  I  think  nobody  could  have  looked  at  him  without  compas- 
sion. But  nobody  would  look  at  him,  and  he  went  from  one 
end  of  the  promenade  to  the  other  without  receiving  a  glance 
or  a  sou.  Shortly  afterward  there  arrived  another  blind  man. 
He  was  nothing  like  so  pitiable  as  the  first — he  had  none  of 
the  same  look  of  abject  wretchedness,  none  of  the  same  hope- 
less, dragging  gait,  but  seemed  rather  one  who  felt  that  he  had 
been  provided  by  nature  with  an  honorable  and  remunerative  pro- 
fession. He  was  led,  not  by  a  dog,  but  by  a  pertinacious  boy, 
who  haled  him  about  to  confront  every  creature  within  reach, 
appealing  to  all  with   the   same  set  whine,  .and  reporting  to  his 


8^  FLOTSAM   AND  JETSAM. 

chief,  sotto  voce  and  in  natural  tones,  the  result  of  his  appeals, 
thus  :  "  Ayez  pitie  d'un  malheureux  aveugle  (rien)  ;"  "  ayez 
pitie  d'un  malheureux  aveugle  (trois  sous  !)  ;"  '*  ayez  pitie — 
(g'n  y  a  pas  de  monde — a  gauche)  ;"  "  ayez  pitie,"  and  so 
forth.*  Coppers  and  even  silver  pieces  fell  into  bis  hat  from 
the  hands  of  well-nigh  everybody  ;  whereupon  I  reflected  that, 
although  many  of  us  do  our  alms  without  a  great  desire  to  be 
seen  of  men,  still  we  do  like  to  be  seen  at  least  of  that  man  to 
whom  the  alms  are  given  ;  also,  that  possibly  there  may  be  less 
reproach  conveyed  in  the  look  of  a  dog  at  the  obdurate  alms- 
withholder,  than  in  the  look  of  a  pertinacious  boy  ;  and  finally, 
that  a  dog  is  more  easily  avoided  than  a  boy. 

From  time  to  time  it  occurs  to  the  common  people  of  Eng- 
land that  they  are  miserably  off,  and  they  come  cap  in  hand 
humbly  enough  to  their  masters,  the  superior  classes  in  Parlia- 
ment assembled,  and  in  Ministers  incarnate,  begging  for  some 
alleviation  of  their  misery.  Not  very  long  ago,  pressed  harder 
even  than  usual  by  famine,  they  prayed  for  cheap  bread,  and 
certain  pertinacious  boys  from  the  manufacturing  districts, 
perceiving  that  cheaper  bread  meant  cheaper  labor  and  larger 
profits,  took  them  in  hand,  and  led  them  about  wailing  till 
they  got  it.  Now,  in  these  latter  days,  the  same  people  have 
asked  for  wages  that  will  enable  them  to  keep  body  and  soul 
together  ;  but  as  higher  wages  mean  dearer  labor,  less  profits, 
and  even  lower  rents,  no  pertinacious  boy  has  been  found  will- 
ing to  play  godfather  to  such  a  prayer.  And  so,  while  all  man- 
ufacturers are  increasing  their  profits,  the  common  people  are 
paternally  advised  to  make  themselves  scarce,  and  to  try 
whether  haply  some  other  hemisphere  will  afford  them  beef  and 
beer,  now  that  England  is  too  poor  to  give  them  anything  be- 
yond bread  and  tea. 


*  "  Have  pity  with  an  unhappy  blind  man  (nothing)  ;"  "  have  pity 
with  an  unhappy  blind  man  (three  sous!);"  ''have  pity — (there  is 
nobody— to  the  left)  ;"  "  have  pity,"  etc. 


FLOTSAM   AND  JETSAM.  83 

The  Municipal  authorities  of  St.  Malo  are  very  intelligent. 
They  have  discovered  that  from  time  to  time  a  celestial  body, 
vulgarly  known  as  the  moon,  shines  during  a  portion  of  the 
night;  and  having  also  discovered  that  the  nights  of  its  shin- 
ing can  be  foretold  beforehand,  they  have  come  to  the  conclu- 
sion that  it  would  be  a  profligate  extravagance  to  light  their 
few  gas-lamps  on  such  nights.  Accordingly  they  do  not  light 
them. 

But  what  they  have  not  yet  discovered  is,  that  there  are 
such  objects  in  nature  as  clouds,  and  that  they  sometimes  so 
come  between  the  earth  and  the  moon  as  to  conceal  it  even 
from  St.  Malo  ;  so  that  the  inhabitants  sometimes  walk  over 
the  quay,  xmder  the  impression  that  they  are  walking  into  their 
houses. 

I  always  hear  with  impatience  this  common  colloquy  between 
masters  and  servants,  or  superiors  in  general  and  their  sub- 
ordinates. "  Why  did  you  do  this?"  they  ask.—"  Well,  I 
thought  so-and-so." — "  Think  !  You  shouldn't  think,  but  do 
as  I  tell  you,"  etc.,  etc.  Whereas,  what  is  wanted  is  that  they 
should  think  not  less  but  more — in  fact,  they  should  think 
sufficiently  for  the  occasion. 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

Off  les  Hbaux  de  Brehat, 

2d  September,  1874. 
I  HAVE  just  had  one  of  those  frights  which  are  so  delightful 
when  one  looks  back  at  them,  and  so  very  much  the  reverse 
while  they  last.  I  had  become  tired  of  waiting  for  the 
weather  to  settle,  and  this  morning  came  out  of  St.  Malo 
through  the  Decolle  channel,  bound  to  round  the  Land's  End  if 
the  wind  would  hold  in  the  southwest — or  elsewhere  if  it  would 


84  FLOTSAM  AlfD  JETSAM. 

not.  Now  in  my  way  lay  those  two  well-known  patches  of 
rock,  the  Roches  Douvres  and  the  Barnouic,  the  nearest  road 
lying  inside  and  the  usual  and  safer  outside  them.  Naturally, 
I  chose  the  inside  road.  There  was  a  considerable  deal  of 
wind,  and  so  much  sea  that,  some  five  hours  after  leaving  St. 
Malo,  I  put  on  my  boots,  and  battened  down.  But  I  had  no 
doubt  as  to  my  course — probably  all  the  less  because  I  had 
never  been  in  those  parts  before.  I  passed  the  beacon  of 
Lejon,  and  soon  after  made  what  I  supposed  to  be  the  beacon 
on  the  Horaine  rocks,  which  I  meant  to  leave  on  my  port,  or 
left  hand,  at  a  fair  distance,  so  as  to  go  between  them  and  the 
Barnouic  ledge.  Imagine  now  my  horror  and  my  indignation, 
when  Ned  announced  that  he  saw  another  beacon  ahead  on  the 
starboard,  or  right  hand,  where  no  beacon  should  be  according 
to  the  charts  and  the  sailing  directions.  The  two  ghosts  were 
nothing  to  this.  There  it  was  sure  enough,  and  now  the  ques- 
tion was  whether  we  were  not  too  far  in  with  the  land,  and 
whether  this  outer,  or  right-hand  beacon,  was  not  the  Horaine, 
which  was  to  be  left  on  the  left  hand.  The  uncertainty  of  the 
situation  was  only  increased  by  the  discovery  I  thought  I  then 
made,  that  the  beacon  previously  supposed  to  be  the  Horaine 
was  not  a  beacon  at  all,  but  a  lighthouse.  There  was  then  half 
a  gale  of  wind  blowing,  and  a  high  sea  running  full  in  with  the 
whole  sweep  of  the  Atlantic.  We  were  going  a  great  pace,  and 
if  we  were  wrong  it  was  a  question  of  another  life.  I  Avas 
horribly  frightened,  and  thanks  to  the  lively  capers  of  the  Billy 
Baby,  not  a  little  uncomfortable.  But  I  reckoned  that  with 
such  a  sea  rocks  dangerous  to  us  must  show  themselves,  so  I 
sent  Ned  to  the  masthead.  He  reported  breakers  on  both 
sides,  but  none  ahead,  so  I  jumped  to  the  conclusion  that  the 
inexplicable  beacon  must  be  a  new  one  recently  placed  on  the 
Barnouic  ledge,  and  that  we  were  right  as-we  were  going.  At 
any  rate  I  kept  on,  and  I  have  now  at  last  got  the  beacon — or 
as  I  have  now  decided  it  must  be,  the  H^aux  lighthouse — on 
such  a  bearing  that,  whatever  it  is,  we  must  be  through  the 
dangers.     The  glass  is  going  steadily    down,   and  the  wind 


I^LOTSAM   AKD   JETSAM.  85 

steadily  up,  but  when  once  I  get  clear  of  the  land  I  don't  care. 
Much  against  my  own  private  inclinations,  and  purely  out  of  a 
mean  desire  to  keep  up  my  reputation  with  Bill,  I  have  made 
believe  to  dine.  I  trust  it  will  be  set  down  to  my  credit  as  a 
great  action  when  all  accounts  are  made  up. 

A  Avonderful  relief,  indeed,  is  it  to  feel  that  one  has  the 
blessed  open  sea  before  one,  after  getting  clear  of  land  and 
rocks  laid  out  in  such  a  Chinese  puzzle  as  these.  I  think  that 
not  even  the  delight  of  getting  safe  in  is  equal  to  that  of  get- 
ting safe  out  ;  and  yet  there  are  those  who  fancy  that  the 
troubles  and  anxieties  of  seafaring  diminish  as  the  seaman  ap- 
proaches the  coast — as  though  ships  were  commonly  lost  at  sea, 
and  not  on  the  land. 


Falmouth,  3d  September. 

We  have  had  a  shocking  bad  day.  Everybody  and  every- 
thing on  board  the  Billy  Baby  is  wet  through  ;  the  rain  has 
come  down  in  one  sheet  since  six  o'clock  this  morning,  the 
wind  has  been  blowing  all  round  the  compass,  and  the  sky  has 
lain  upon  us  in  one  dull  leaden  sheet  that  one  could  feel  on  the 
top  of  one's  head.  When  the  wind  finally  got  round  to  north, 
I  did  not  see  my  way  at  all  round  the  Land's  End,  and  deter- 
mined to  run  into  this  port  and  to  wait  for  orders.  The  port  is  full 
of  vessels,  for  it  is  one  of  those,  dear  to  the  seaman,  by  which 
Nature  herself  has  marked  out  England  for  a  maritime  nation, 
even  more  distinctly  than  by  surrounding  her  with  seas.  Easy 
of  entry,  always  accessible,  and  offering  secure  shelter  to  any 
number  of  vessels  of  any  size,  it  has  proved  a  blessed  haven  to 
many  a  mariner  coming  in  from  the  ocean,  and  it  is  now  more 
than  ever  a  favorite  port  of  arrival  and  departure  for  vessels  en- 
gaged in  long  voyages. 

It  is  curious  enough  that,  in  those  days  of  old  when  (as  the 
hackneyed  writers  would  have  us  believe)  England  was  a 
thoroughly  poor  and  barbarous  country,  the  great  man's  house 
and  table  were  open  to  all  comers,  and  that  all  those  who  held 


86  FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM. 

themselves  to  be  of  the  superior  or  lordly  classes  made  it  their 
pride,  as  they  held  it  to  be  their  duty,  to  receive  every  home- 
less hungry  man  who  came  to  them.  This  has  all  been 
mended,  for  we  have  come  to  see  that  the  possession  of  the 
good  things  of  the  earth  involves  no  obligation  toward  those 
who  do  not  possess  them.  We  have  learned  from  an  ecstatic 
contemplation  of  the  blessed  principle  of  self-interest  that  the 
one  sacred  principle  in  which  alone  there  is  hope  for  mankind 
is  that  each  should  acquire  all  he  possibly  can,  and  be  approved 
and  defended  in  its  retention  against  all  comers.  On  the  land 
every  inch  is  taken  up  from  the  centre  of  the  earth  to  the 
zenith  of  the  heavens,  so  that  the  landless  man  can  only  stand, 
walk,  breathe,  and  have  the  light  of  the  sun,  moon,  and  stars 
(for  they  too  presumably  belong  to  the  landowner  in  whose 
zenith  for  the  moment  they  are)  on  sufferance.  There  is  there- 
fore this  delight  in  being  at  sea,  that  here  at  least  one  is  not  yet 
a  trespasser.  But  how  long  will  this  last  ?  How  long  will  it 
be  before  the  blessed  inventions  of  civilization  and  property 
freed  from  obligations  are  extended  to  the  waters  also  ?  How 
long  will  it  be  before  a  nation  which  has  closed  its  doors 
against  the  shelterless  and  the  distressed  wayfarer  closes  its 
ports  against  the  shelterless  and  distressed  mariner  ?  Is  there 
any  difference  in  the  nature  of  the  duties  of  humanity  due  to 
each  ?  I  see  none.  By  a  few  gradations  the  thing  may  be 
done  on  the  water  precisely  as  it  has  been  done  on  the  land. 
The  ports  are  no  man's  absolute  property  now — no  more  was 
the  land  once.  Like  the  land,  they  may  be  made  absolute  prop- 
erty. Then  a  system  of  out-of-port  relief  may  be  framed  for 
the  distressed  mariner  ;  finally,  one  or  two  great  ports  may  be 
created,  into  which  he  may  be  allowed  to  come  on  condition 
of  abandoning  his  ship.  And  then  those  of  us  who  are  lucky 
enough  to  get  possession  of  one  of  the  old  ports  once  open  to 
all,  may  enjoy  our  waters  in  peace,  and  sail  placidly  about 
them,  fishing  their  carefully-preserved  depths  in  our  yachts, 
with  such  friends  as  we  may  choose  to  invite  or  such  indifferent 
persons  as  may  be  able  to  pay  the  price  we  set  upon  entry. 


FLOTSAM   AKD   JETSAM.  87 

Meantime,  and  as  some  little  step  in  the  right  direction,  the 
Solent  should  be  cleared  of  merchantmen  just  as  the  Park  has 
been  cleared  of  cabs,  and  should  be  maintained  strictly  for 
pleasure-craft,  with  a  force  of  gun-boats  to  secure  the  select 
from  the  accidents  incidental  to  unskilful  navigation. 

¥i  ^  *  *  *  * 

4th  September. 
It  is  a  melancholy  fact  that  anything  is  believed  to  be  good 
enough  for  sailors.  And  Falmouth  being  frequented  exclu- 
sively by  sailors  affords  a  very  melancholy  example  of  that 
belief.  So  much  trash,  trumpery,  slop,  and  shoddy  were 
never  exposed  in  shops  as  are  here  brought  together  for  pres- 
entation to  the  admiring  eye  of  the  advance-noted  seaman. 
Tarpaulin  hats,  yellow  water-proofs,  sea  mittens,  long  boots, 
tinned  meats,  strings  of  onions,  rings,  trinkets,  and  watches, 
all  made  most  conscientiously  to  sell,  are  paraded  from  one  end 
of  the  long  street  to  the  other,  and  from  one  end  to  the  other 
offer  to  the  landsman's  eye  a  humiliating  array  of  fifteenth- 
class  wares.  Not  so  does  the  sailor  regard  them.  Nothing  will 
tear  Bill  away  from  a  certain  collection  of  cheap  finery,  and  I 
am  certain  the  reason  he  was  so  long  after  my  letters  this  morn- 
ing was  that  he  was  engaged  in  some  stupendous  sacrifice  of 
wages  on  the  shrine  of  the  being  he  adores. 

^  ^  :ti  41  *  ttl 

Latitude  51°  20'  19'  N.,  5th  September. 
I  left  Falmouth  yesterday  morning  at  ten,  rounded  the  Long- 
ships  at  midnight  in  company  with  a  whole  fleet  of  steamers 
and  sailing  vessels,  some  with  lights  and  some  without,  and 
turned  in  for  a  sleep  with  the  comfortable  knowledge  that  we 
were  safe  at  sea  again.  On  a  careful  study  of  the  tides  I  had 
worked  out  and  set  the  most  scientific  series  of  courses  ;  they 
have  been  faithfully  sailed  ;  the  distances  are  recorded  to  a 
quarter  of  a  mile  ;  and  yet  now  after  making  up  my  day's 
work  I  find  that  on  a  run  of  seventy-six  miles  I  am  put  nearly 


88  FLOTSAM    AND    JETSAM. 

two  miles  further  north  by  observation  than  I  am  made  to  be 
by  my  dead  reckoning.  And  as  botli  are  probably  in  error, 
and  may  be  in  error  in  contrary  ways,  I  can't  rely  upon  being 
within  at  least  four  miles  of  a  given  parallel  of  latitude.  So 
that  if  I  went  on  at  tlie  same  rate  for  seven  thousand  miles  I 
might  accumulate  an  uncertainty  of  four  hundred  miles.  But 
seamen  have  a  simple  way  of  accounting  for  differences  between 
the  position  of  a  vessel  as  ascertained  by  dead  reckoning  and  as 
ascertained  by  observation — which  is  to  set  it  down  to  "  cur- 
rent," and  thus  they  wipe  out  all  mistakes  and  make  them- 
selves right  every  day  at  twelve  o'clock.  A  comfortable  pro- 
ceeding, yet  which  must  not  be  too  thoroughly  relied  upon,  as 
one  would  think  ;  and  one  which  I,  who  am  supposed  to  know 
and  to  have  allowed  for  the  current,  ought  not  to  have  to  resort 
to.  But  in  fact  you  cannot  know  currents  except  within  cer- 
tain very  narrow  limits,  and  between  the  Land's  End  and  the 
Bristol  Channel  they  have  a  bad  habit  of  setting  in  various 
directions  at  various  rates,  and  in  any  event  we  can't  go  on 
long  without  making  something  and  acquiring  a  certainty,  the 
continual  possibility  of  doing  which  is  after  all  the  sole  advan- 
tage of  coasting.  Charts  in  general  are  very  deficient  in  infor- 
mation as  to  the  set  of  the  tides.  The  French  charts  give  no 
indications  whatever  of  it,  and  the  English,  though  better,  are 
not  at  all  complete  in  this  respect.  Another  point  which  really 
calls  for  attention  is  the  ambiguity  and  amphibology  of  the 
official  sailing  directions.  They  continually  give  you  as  lead- 
ing marks  objects  not  specified  on  the  charts,  which  render 
the  marks  practically  no  marks  at  all.  For  instance  I  am  told 
that  "  Godolphin  hill  in  line  with  Carndu  point  leads  two 
thirds  of  a  mile  south-east  of  the  Runnel  stone,"  but  as  neither 
Godolphin  iiill  nor  Carndu  point  are  to  be  found  on  the  chart, 
I  am  no  better  off  than  I  was  before.  The  directions  should 
be  collated  with  the  charts  to  be  intelligible,  for  on  a  coast  one 
sees  for  the  first  time  it  is  often  difficult  enough  to  pick  out  a 
given  windmill,  a  given  house,  or  a  given  clump  of  trees,  even 
when  they  are  laid  down  on  the  chart.     The  directions  are 


FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM.  S9 

full,  too,  of  the  most  insane  English,  and  of  sentences  which 
assert  precisely  the  reverse  of  what  they  are  presumably  in- 
tended to  convey.  Here  are  some  which  I  have  come  across 
quite  casually.  Writing  of  the  leading  marks  for  the  Bristol 
Channel,  the  author  says  :  "  Few  of  those  formerly  given 
can  now  be  recognized,  and  are  otherwise  inapplicable  from 
the  alterations  alona;  the  channels."  The  second  allegation 
here  is  that  few  of  the  marks  are  "  inapplicable,"  whereas  the 
meaning  presumably  is  that  few  are  applicable.  Then  in  the 
directions  for  the  east  coast  of  Ireland  I  read  that  certain 
landmarks  "  were  erected  for  the  purpose  of  enabling  vessels 
to  readily  distinguish  between  Tramore  Bay  and  the  entrance 
to  Waterford  Harbor,  a  mistake  that  has  been  fatal  to  a  great 
many  vessels  ;"  the  sense  of  which  is  that  the  mistake  of  read- 
ily distinguishing  this  difference  has  been  fatal  !  These  are 
mere  specimens  of  the  confused  and  misleading  writing  that 
occurs  at  nearly  every  page  of  books  which  it  is  absolutely  es- 
sential should  be  plainly  and  clearly  written,  and  which,  in- 
deed, there  is  no  excuse  for  writing  otherwise.  I  would  pray 
the  Hydrographic  Office  to  have  all  their  works  carefully  edited 
by  somebody  possessing  that  rarest  of  all  accomplishments,  the 
power  of  writing  plain  things  in  plain  English,  and  I  am  sure 
everybody  in  the  trade  will  agree  with  me. 

Ik  *  «  )|c  4c  * 

Waterford,  8th  September. 
Sailing  yesterday  up  this  beautiful  river,  seeing  the  smiling 
green  uplands  and  the  distant  purple  mountains  on  each  side  of 
me,  and  answering  the  many  boatmen  who  came  alongside  to 
ask  if  "  my  anner"  wanted  a  pilot,  I  thought  mournfully  of 
the  system  of  Government  which  has  reduced  people  in  our 
English  island  to  wish  that  this  our  Irish  one  might  be  un- 
loosed from  her  moorings  in  the  deep  and  set  two  thousand 
miles  farther  away  in  the  Atlantic.  And  the  people  of 
the.  country,  as  one  comes  into  contact  with  them,  only 
add  to  the  melancholy  of  that  thought  ;  while  the  nature  of 
the  rule  under  which  they  live  shows  that  it  is  really  enter- 


90  FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM. 

tained.  Dirty,  laborious,  half-clad,  half-fed,  gay,  mirthful, 
helpful,  and  servile  withal,  these  poor  Irish  bear  the  character 
of  the  slave  written  in  plain  characters  upon  them.  And  on 
every  side  is  the  evidence  that  the  Imperial  rule  is  still  one  of 
force — only  endured,  but  never  yet  accepted.  The  police  walk 
not  singly,  but  by  twos  in  the  streets — consider  what  that 
means — they  occupy  every  railway-station,  they  are  armed 
with  sword-bayonets.  No  English  minister — not  even  now, 
after  Irish  Church  Bills  and  Land  Bills — would  venture  to 
allow  the  formation  of  Irish  volunteer  corps.  Surely  here, 
too,  is  another  series  of  facts  calculated  to  make  us  suspect 
that  the  blessed  system  of  government  under  which  we  live  is 
not  so  perfect  nor  even  so  ingenious  after  all  that  has  been  said 
of  it.  For  it  rests  not  upon  its  own  merits,  but  solely  upon 
force,  here  in  the  only  one  of  the  British  islands  of  which  the 
people  still  require  rule  of  any  kind.  I  met  to-day  Miles-na- 
Coppaleen  disguised  as  a  car-driver,  and  as  he  was  driving  me 
about  I  asked  him  if  there  were  any  Fenians  still  in  Ireland. 
"  Bedad,  sir,"  said  he,  "they  say  there's  a  good  many 
av  em — but  you  niver  know  who  is  and  who  isn't."  "Are 
you  a  Fenian?" — "I  wouldn't  be  bowld  to  be  one  av  I 
wanted  (go  an,  Kathleen  !)  ;  there's  divil  a  man  ye  can  thrust 
(go  an  !),  no,  nor  woman  either — ye  know  that,  yer  anner." 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

Off  the  Hook,  12th  September. 
There  is  much  of  the  Neapolitan  in  these  Irish,  much  of  the 
same  impossibly  ragged  mind  and  clothing,  much  of  the  same 
caressing  tone  and  language,  much  too  of  the  same  disregard 
for  facts,  and  withal  most  of  the  qualities  of  an  enslaved  race. 
"  May  the  blessing  of  God  follow  yer  anner  ;  sure  now,  you'll 
give  me  something  just  to  keep  the  childer  from  starvin'— /or 


FLOTSAM   AND  JETSAM.  91 

your  welcome  to  poor  ould  Ireland.''''  This  was  said  to  me  up 
the  country,  and  who  could  resist  the  appeal  of  a  woman  who 
had  taken  sufficient  notice  of  one  to  discover  or  to  guess  that 
one  was  here  for  the  first  time  ?  For  say  what  we  may,  we 
do  all  value  the  attention  of  our  fellow-creatures — even  of  a 
beggar-woman. 

There  is  a  blind  beggar  who  stands  on  the  way  to  the  rail- 
way station  here.  As  I  passed  him  this  morning,  he  said, 
"  Dhrop  a  copper  into  a  poor  man's  hat."  To  see  the  effect, 
I  dropped  a  shilling,  which  on  fingering  he  recognized  imme- 
diately. "Good  luck  to  your  anner, "  said  he,  "and  may 
the  blessings,"  etc.,  etc.  "Sure  an'  it's  the  first  piece  of 
silver  I've  touched  for  a  month." — "  Come  now,"  I  remon- 
strated, "  say  a  week." — "  No,  by  the  holy  Sire,  it's  mor'n 
a  month.  May  the  blessings,"  etc.  Now,  coming  back 
from  the  station,  I  was  met  by  the  same  appeal,  and  this  time 
I  dropped  a  sixpence  into  the  outstretched  hat.  "  Long  life 
to  your  anner,  it's  the  first  bit  o'"  silver  I've  touched  for  a 
week,"  exclaimed  the  old  sinner  in  the  accents  of  the  purest 
truth  and  the  deepest  gratitude. — "  Why,  you  humbug,  I  gave 
you  a  shilling  myself  this  morning."  His  face  underwent  a 
change,  but  he  instantly  answered  in  a  deprecating  tone,  "  Are 
you  the  gintleman  that  gave  me  the  shilling  ;  sure  now,  why 
didn^t  you  say  so,  and  I  wouldnU  have  towld  the  lie  ?^  ^  This 
pleased  me  much. 

In  contrast  to  this  was  the  last  Irishman  we  spoke.  He 
came  alongside  in  a  boat — a  fine  fellow — with  a  certain  sturdy 
look  about  his  face  only  just  tempered  by  a  bright,  twinkling, 
untrustworthy  eye.  After  the  usual  marine  talk  had  made  us 
the  friends  all  men  seem  to  be  on  the  water,  "  Are  you  a 
Fenian  ?"  said  I. — "  Begorra,  and  I  am  in  my  heart," 
replied  he,  "  but  hwhat's  the  use  ?" — "  Well,"  I  returned,  to 
draw  him,  "  it  I  were  an  Irishman,  I  think  I  should  be  a  Fe- 
nian."— "  Divi'la  fear  of  your  being  a  Faynlan,  you've  got  too 
much  money.  God  send  yon  a  iucky  passage  anyhow."  And 
with  this  he  lay  down  to  his  sculls  and  left  us. 

♦  ♦  *  f  *  >»» 


92  FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM. 

At  Sea,  13th  September. 
It  is  surprising  how  a  solitary  vagabond  life  grows  upon  one. 
I  left  Waterford  last  night  intending  to  go  round  the  Land's 
End  again,  and  so  away  to  the  eastward,  and  now,  when  half- 
way there,  I  find  myself  debating  whether  I  shall  not  rather 
run  across  to  Ushant,  and  work  down  throngh  the  French 
ports  on  the  Bay  to  the  north  of  Spain,  and  thence  through 
the  Straits  to  the  Mediterranean.  The  weather  is  enough  to 
tempt  one  to  go  anywhere  from  this  advantageous  position,  so 
well  to  the  westward.  The  barometer  is  steadily  rising,  a  fine 
northerly  breeze  is  blowing,  and  though  exposed  here  to  the 
whole  range  of  the  Atlantic,  one  is  only  aware  of  it  through 
the  long  gentle  swell  which  always  rolls  in,  and  over  which  the 
Billy  Baby  rides  like  a  duck.  It  is  a  splendid  opportunity  to 
go  south,  and  in  all  probability  the  last  there  will  be  before 
the  equinoctial  gales  set  in,  and  I  feel  much  inclined  to  let 
everything  slide  and  seize  it.  But  even  the  least  important  of 
us  has  what  he  thinks  important  engagements  surrounding  him 
in  that  network  which  we  all  seem  bent  on  contriving  to  take 
away  our  liberties  ;  and  I,  too,  alas  !  have  retained  more  or 
less  of  the  notion  that  I  ought  to  be  in  certain  places  at  certain 
times.  Wherefore  I  suppose  I  ought  to  carry  out  my  original 
plan,  and  once  more  leave  aside  all  tempting  projects  of  dis- 
tant voyage.  Yet  in  weather  like  this  it  is  a  horror  only  to 
think  of  going  back  to  London  and  winter  when  Italy  and  sum- 
mer are  practically  so  near,  and  when  one  is  over  the  thresh- 
old as  it  were.  There  is  only  this  consolation,  that  like  all 
unendurable  things  and  men,  even  London  and  its  inhabitants 
have  qualities  when  once  one  has  made  up  one's  mind  to  fre- 
quent them. 

)|c  :):  ijc  4:  4:  4c 

At  Sea,  13th  September. 
I  don't  know  that  I  ever  felt  more  satisfaction  with  myself 
than  I  did  to-day  after  giving  Ned  his  first  lesson  in  naviga- 
tion, and  acquiring  the  certainty  that  he  really  knew  what  a 


FLOTSAM    AND   JETSAM.  93 

!5enith  distance  was.  In  presenting  to  him  this  entirely  new 
notion  of  taking  the  sun,  and  of  doing  such  things  with  the 
resulting  figures  as  to  bring  out  his  latitude,  T  felt  something 
of  what  I  fancy  must  be  the  missionary  spirit,  and  experi- 
enced a  real  pleasure  in  watching  his  mind  take  the  successive 
steps  from  principle  to  inference,  and  from  inference  to  calcu- 
lation ;  and  what  was  most  pleasing  of  all  was  to  dog  his  in- 
telligence as  it  moved,  to  see  it  amble  gently  along  through  the 
mere  acceptance  of  my  propositions,  then  hesitate  when  it 
came  to  the  jump  ;  and  finally,  after  many  refusals,  to  have  the 
satisfaction  of  coaxing  it  over,  and  sec  it  landed  on  the  other 
side.  Instruction  is  commonly  confounded  with  bald  asser- 
tion on  the  one  hand  and  blind  belief  on  the  other,  and  thus 
understood  it  is  a  hideous  process  ;  but  it  is  one  thing  to  tell  a 
child  with  authority  that  two  and  two  make  four,  and  another 
thing  to  make  a  child  understand  the  proposition,  and  adopt  it 
for  itself.  So,  also,  it  is  really  interesting  to  find  a  man  who 
has  no  notion  what  an  angle  is,  and  to  bring  him  at  last  to  see 
how  it  is  that  a  sextant  will  measure  an  angle,  and  how  he  can 
find  his  latitude  by  believing  that  there  are  three  hundred  and 
sixty  degrees  in  a  circle,  and  that  the  angle  of  incidence  is 
equal  to  the  angle  of  reflection,  or  by  acting  and  calculating 
as  though  he  believed  it.  For  one  really  must  have  faith 
in  mathematics  at  sea  to  that  extent,  contrariwise  to  faith 
ashore,  which  never  extends  to  acts,  and  still  less  to  calcula- 
tions. Yet  I  am  told  that  somebody  has  discovered  that  the 
angle  of  incidence  is  not  equal  to  the  angle  of  reflection,  which, 
if  it  be  true,  upsets  all  our  instruments  and  all  our  acquired 
facts.  Moreover,  I  saw  yesterday  in  an  Irish  paper  a  letter 
from  a  gentleman  in  Dublin,  who  declares  that  he  has  found 
the  means  of  squaring  the  circle,  which  he  says  still  further 
upsets  everything.  It  is  very  distressing.  Perhaps  nothing 
at  all  is  true,  even  in  geometry,  and  perhaps,  now  that  I  fancy 
I  am  steering  a  series  of  scientific  courses  which  will  take  me 
on  a  rhumb-line  to  the  Longships,  I  am  going  quite  another 
road  ;   and,  if  so,  what  kind  of  responsibility  have  I  not  in- 


94  FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM. 

curred  toward  Ned  by  teaching  him  my  beliefs  as  articles  of 
faith,  and  telling  him  nothing  at  all  of  those  new  discoveries  ? 

Off  the  Longsiiips,  14th  September. 
Since  we  last  passed  this  spot  a  .Jersey  brig  was  wrecked 
here  in  a  southerly  gale,  and  all  hands  lost  but  one,  who  was 
picked  up  by  another  vessel.  It  is  certainly  a  nasty  spot  in 
bad  weather,  and  it  is  not  so  long  since  the  inhabitants  of  the 
coast  believed  that  it  had  been  specially  made  so  by  Provi- 
dence in  order  to  give  them  good  opportunities  of  wrecking, 
often  incidentally  accompanied  by  the  murder  of  any  sailor 
ill-advised  enough  to  be  washed  ashore  with  his  cargo. 
These  were  very  wicked  people,  affording  the  only  instance  on 
record  of  any  beings  not  of  superhuman  rank  taking  away 
from  him  that  hath  not,  even  that  which  he  hath. 

iic  4i  4:  %  4<  4c 

At  Sea,  Tuesday,  15th  September. 
It  has  been  alleged  that  there  exists  a  specific  disease  of  the 
brain-tissue  called  "  genius."  And,  like  all  allegations  made 
with  audacity,  this  has  been  repeated  without  inquiry  until 
one  might  fancy  there  was  something  in  it.  Now  I  do  not 
believe  it.  I  regard  it  as  one  of  those  idle  words  that  men 
speak,  originally  invented  and  subsequently  adopted  in  order 
to  excuse  the  disposition  we  all  feel  not  to  take  any  pains 
about  anything  in  the  universe.  Let  me  be  understood.  I 
do  not  say  that  we  are  all  equal  in  point  of  moral  and  intel- 
lectual quality  ;  but  I  do  say  that  there  is  none  of  us  so  im- 
mensely superior  as  to  be  able  to  produce  work  that  thousands 
of  others  might  not  equally  produce  if  they  would  only  take 
the  trouble.  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  much  in  support 
of  that  proposition,  for  it  seems  to  me  capable  of  demon- 
stration. As  thus  :  Socrates,  Bacon,  Homer,  Dante,  Shake- 
speare, Michael  Angelo,  Reynolds,  Richelieu,  Sully,  Cromwell, 
Goethe,  Byron,  are  all  of  them  men  who  are  credited  with 
this  genius  ;  and  we  of  the  meaner  sort  are  accustomed  to  con- 


FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM.  95 

sole  ourselves  for  our  inferiority  by  setting  it  down  merely  to 
the  want  of  that  divine  spark  which  we  call  genius.  But  now 
how  can  the  excellence  of  philosophy  be  recognized  save  by  a 
philosopher,  of  poetry  but  by  a  poet,  of  art  but  by  an  artist, 
of  statesmanship  but  by  a  statesman  ?  Can  any  take  the 
soundings  of  the  sea  who  has  not  line  enough  to  reach  to  the 
bottom  ?  Can  any  appreciate  the  poet  who  has  not  all  the 
poet's  qualities,  or  the  artist,  or  the  statesman  ?  I  wot  not. 
And  so  the  fact  that  these  poets,  artists,  and  statesmen  have 
been  appreciated  is  sufficient  to  show  that  there  have  been 
many  men  endowed  with  their  qualities,  and  who  only  have  not 
thought,  spoken,  painted,  carved,  or  acted.  Here,  then,  lies 
the  sole  difference  between  the  so-called  man  of  genius  and 
those  who  recognize  him  as  such,  of  themselves  and  not  upon 
mere  hearsay — ^that  the  one  has  set  himself  to  work  while  the 
others  have  been  content  to  look  on,  having  all  the  time  the 
same  qualities  which,  had  they  but  had  the  courage,  would  have 
produced  the  like  effects.  It  is  no  doubt  very  pleasant  and 
consoling  to  believe  that  we  have  all  pulled  well  up  to  the 
collar,  and  that  if  we  have  not  stirred  this  huge  machine  behind 
us,  it  is  because  God  has  not  given  us  strength  to  do  it.  To 
say  that  looks,  too,  so  like  modesty.  But  in  fact  it  is  mostly 
mere  cowardice  or  idleness  that  prompts  the  conclusion.  All 
men  are  not  equal,  but  they  are  all  very  much  more  nearly 
equal  than  they  affect  to  believe  ;  and  though  neither  assertion 
is  quite  true,  it  is  yet  more  nearly  true  to  say  that  everybody 
can  do  everything  than  to  say,  as  most  do,  that  very  few  can 
do  anything. 


CHAPTER  XX. 

16th  September,  1874. 
I  HAVE  often  asked  myself  which  is  the  most  pleasing  stage 
in  a  successful  love-making,  whether  the  going  forth  to  the  en- 
counter when  as  yet  one  knows  not  what  one's  fate  will  be  in 


96  FLOTSAM  AND   JETSAM. 

it  ;  the  first  encouragements,  so  slight  and  delicate  as  to  be  im- 
perceptible to  all  but  one's  own  eye  ;  the  open  avowal  mutually 
given  and  received  ;  or  the  final  admitted  lover-state.  The 
common  theory  is  that  this  last  stage  is  the  best  because  it 
gives  the  least  trouble  and  anxiety  ;  yet  I  should  say  that  the 
first  stage  is  by  far  better,  precisely  because  it  gives  the  most. 
There  is  something  very  delicious  in  the  emotion  of  watching 
for  the  first  movements  of  that  particular  woman  who  has 
taken  one's  fancy,  and  who  is  therefore  for  the  time  the  one 
only  woman  in  all  the  world  ;  something  very  absorbing  in  the 
eager  watch  one  sets  over  every  gesture,  every  glance  of  her 
eye,  every  turn  of  her  head,  every  inflection  of  her  voice,  in 
order  to  surprise,  if  it  be  so,  an  indication  of  her  feelings.  All 
that  disappears  when  once  this  stage  is  passed  ;  and  when  that 
last  one  of  perfect  understanding  is  reached,  the  whole  inter- 
est of  the  matter  subsides  into,  and  is  centred  in,  the  mere 
question  of  fitness  of  companionship.  Here,  then,  is  a 
grand  consolation  for  the  unsuccessful  lover,  that  much  as  he 
may,  from  a  sense  of  decency,  lament  his  failure  to  arrive  at 
the  last  stages,  he  has  yet  in  passing  through  the  first  reaped 
advantages  which  would  have  been  diminished  in  exact  pro- 
portion as  he  advanced  toward  success.  For  this  also  is  true, 
that  the  whole  delight  of  that  insane  passion  lies  in  this — not 
that  that  woman  loves  you,  but  that  you  love  her.  That  may 
stir  your  vanity,  but  this  moves  your  very  soul.  So  at  least  I 
am  informed,  and  believe. 


Trouville,  20th  September. 
Whether  it  is  better  to  love  before  marriage  or  after, 
whether  it  is  possible  to  do  both,  or  whether  love  is  not  in  its 
nature  a  state  of  ecstatic  self-mystification  which  cannot  be 
lasting,  is  not  dissimilar  from  that  question  whether  the 
"  provisoire"  can  be  made  "  definitif,"  upon  which  everybody 
here  is  engaged.  And  it  is  not  unimproving  to  discuss  them 
all  in  the  course  of  a  long  drive  through  a  charming  country, 


FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM.  97 

sitting  opposite  to  two  still  more  charming  pairs  of  bright 
eyes  belonging  to  as  many  "  Imperialistes  enrag^es. "  But 
what  I  can't  comprehend  is  the  admiration  which  all  the  hack 
journalists  of  Europe  pretend  to  feel  for  the  English  system  of 
government,  and  the  readiness  with  which  all  readers  seem  to 
have  adopted  the  complacent  theory  that  any  people  that  will 
starve  quietly,  and  be  miserable  without  revolution,  is  the 
happiest  and  best  on  the  earth.  And  it  is  especially  exasper- 
ating to  hear  that  journalistic  humbug  repeated,  and  the  supe- 
rior natural  prosperity  of  England  cited  as  a  proof  of  it  in  the 
midst  of  a  country  where  the  agricultural  laborer  eats  meat 
every  day.  Two  points  at  least  the  French  have  of  superior- 
ity to  us — that  love  of  justice  which  implies  hatred  of  crime, 
and  which  makes  even  my  fair  friends  declared  haters  of 
Bazaine,  and  that  spirit  of  courtesy  which  is  based  upon"  the 
respect  that  mankind  owes  to  each  other,  and  which  makes 
this  famous  Marshal  stand,  at  seventy,  hat  in  hand,  talking  to 
them  with  all  the  manner  of  a  deferential  dancing-master. 
There  is  hope  for  a  nation  that  still  believes  in  justice  and 
politeness  (which  is  but  a  kind  of  justice)  ;  there  is  none  for  a 
nation  which  habitually  excuses  great  crime  from  punishment, 
and  makes  bad  manners  an  article  of  faith. 


Tkouville,  23d  September. 
The  sun  has  crossed  the  line  to-day,  and  henceforth  we  go 
down-hill  in  the  year  toward  cold,  darkness  and  bad  weather. 
I  always  fancy  that  one  lives  a  whole  life  in  each  year,  and, 
just  as  every  May  I  feel  young,  lusty,  and  full  of  purpose,  so 
at  this  time  I  feel  old,  worn-out,  and  discouraged.  It  has 
been  found  by  poets  and  philosophers,  and  even  by  metaphy- 
sicians and  grammarians,  an  admirable  provision  ^vhich  has 
supplied  us  in  the  objects  and  movements  of  the  universe  with 
an  analogy  for  everything  with  which  the  mind  of  man  can 
possibly  occupy  itself.  We  have  assumed,  possibly  from 
mere  ignorance,  to  divide  ourselves  into  the  two  departments 


98  FLOTSAM   AND  JETSAM. 

— material  and  spiritual  ;  but  it  is  suflSciently  remarkable  that 
when  we  wish  to  be  really  intelligible  either  to  ourselves  or  to 
others  we  always  find  ourselves,  in  speaking  of  the  spiritual, 
driven  back  upon  the  material  for  our  illustrations,  and  thus 
forced  to  admit  that  there  is  a  close  analogy  between  the  two 
— an  analogy,  indeed,  so  close  that  it  is  hard  to  say  whether 
it  be  not  identity. 


I  have  been  to  breakfast  in  one  of  the  many  mansions  of 
William  the  Conqueror,  and  I  have  been  glad,  so  far,  to  make 
his  acquaintance,  because  I  believe  him  to  have  been  very 
hardly  treated  by  the  historians,  and  to  have  been  perfectly 
justified  in  asserting  his  right  against  the  perjured  and  usurp- 
ing Harold.  I  was  shown  a  chair  (of  the  time  of  Louis 
XIII. !),  which  belonged  to  him,  and  I  have  come  back  doubt- 
ing more  than  ever  whether  the  condition  of  mankind  has  really 
been  improved  since  the  barbarous  times  we  are  taught  so  much 
to  despise.  My  quarrel  with  civilization,  as  it  is  called,  is  that 
it  is  a  failure  in  material  matters  ;  that  it  has  not  made  men  in 
general  to  be  better  clothed,  better  fed,  and  better  housed  ;  that 
it  has  not  diminished  in  general  by  one  atom,  but  rather 
increased,  the  burden  of  labor.  Yet,  if  this  be  so,  civilization 
has  not  kept  the  least  of  its  promises.  How  it  has  kept  the 
greater,  those  may  judge  who  are  able  to  see  how  thoroughly 
all  sense  of  law  has  been  lost,  and  what  ready  victims  men 
have  become  to  the  most  egregious  and  manifest  swindles 


Trouville,  29th  September. 
I  have  been  very  lucky  to-day.  I  have  managed  to  run  a 
steamer  ashore  by  sturdily  refusing  to  give  way  to  her  as  I 
was  painfully  entering  the  port ;  I  have  had  a  most  improving 
conversation  with  some  English  oyster  dredgers  ;  and  I  have 
seen  at  least  a  score  of  perfectly-dressed  women.  All  this 
shows  that  one  should  take  one's  own  course.     The  English 


FLOTSAM    AND    JETSAM.  99 

fishermen  start  with  fewer  advantages  than  the  French  in  the 
oyster  fishery,  yet  they  are  far  better  at  it  ;  French  women 
start  with  fewer  advantages  than  English  in  dressing,  yet  they 
are  far  better  at  tliat.  One  principal  reason  is  that  each  woman 
dresses  herself,  instead  of  all  being  dressed  to  one  pattern  by 
the  Fashion.  For  instance,  instead  of  there  being,  as  in  Eng- 
land, one  only  hat,  I  have  already  seen  here  almost  as  many 
hats  as  women.  There  is  one  especially  which  fascinates  me 
— a  round  flat  sailor's  hat,  with  roses  round  it,  stuck  saucily  on 
the  very  back  of  the  head.  And,  dear  nie,  what  a  number  of 
pretty  people  there  are  here  still  1 

I  am  exercised  to  find  at  Trouville  a  fine  marble  pedestal, 
inscribed,  "An  due  de  Morny  la  ville  de  Deauville. "  The 
statue  once  presumably  surmounting  this  pedestal  has  been  re- 
moved, which  makes  the  inscription  comic,  and  affords  yet 
another  proof  that  emperors,  kings,  and  others  who  assume  the 
right  to  give  names,  are  not  the  fountains  of  honor,  except  in  a 
purely  declaratory  sense.  They  may  put  the  whole  machinery 
of  the  State  in  motion  to  tack  a  title  of  honor  to  a  man  ;  they 
may  consecrate  it  by  laws  and  support  it  by  armies  ;  but  if  the 
quality  of  honor  is  not  in  the  man  the  title  means  nothing,  and 
will  be  totally  ignored  or,  what  is  worse,  despised.  It  is  not 
in  the  power  of  any  potentate  to  take  a  stockjobbing  chapman, 
a  cheating  tradesman,  or  a  swindler  of  any  kind,  and  to  make 
him  be  received  by  the  world  as  a  dux  or  leader  of  men. 
When  a  Sovereign  takes  such  an  one  and  declares  solemnly, 
"  This  is  a  master-man,  an  earl,  a  count,  a  duke,  by  so  much 
superior  to  all  you  others,  and  by  so  much  the  more  entitled  to 
your  respect,"  it  is  not  well  either  for  the  selected  one  or  for 
the  Sovereign  that  the  others  should  be  able  to  answer  with 
one  accord,  "  You  tell  a  lie."  Nay,  it  is  far  belter  to  be  the 
leader  without  being  called  so,  than  to  be  called  so  without 
being  it. 


100  FLOTSAM  AlfD  JETSAM. 


CHAPTER  XXI. 

Trouville,  25tli  September. 
There  are  few  books  which  teach  less  or  suggest  more  than 
that  one  of  Erasmus  which  he  called  the  Eucomium  Mmnoe. 
Wherefore  there  are  few  books  more  valuable  or  delightful  to 
read.  In  the  course  of  the  Praise  of  Folly,  to  which  he  de- 
votes the  work,  he  gives  a  delightful  sketch  of  the  truly  wise 
man  as  he  has  always  been  understood — one  who  is  ill-favored, 
poor,  dirty,  badly-dressed,  repulsive,  occupied  solely  with  mat- 
ters in  which  nobody  takes  any  interest,  a  stranger  to  all  pas- 
sions and  to  all  human  emotions,  wanting  nothing,  thankful 
for  nothing,  owning  no  ties  and  no  gratitude,  passing  his  time 
in  ecstatic  admiration  of  himself,  believing  himself  to  be  the 
only  successful  man,  the  only  powerful,  the  only  truly  rich,  of 
the  world,  and  despising  the  whole  of  the  human  race  besides 
himself  and  some  two  or  three  others  like  him.  "  "Who," 
asks  Erasmus,  "  would  choose  such  an  one  for  a  friend  or  an 
acquaintance,  much  less  for  a  father  or  a  husband  ?"  Who, 
indeed.  How  thankful  then  should  we  not  all  feel  that  we  are 
the  fools  we  know  ourselves  to  be. 

26th  September. 
It  is  strange  that  men  reflect  so  little  upon  the  meaning  of 
the  verbal  and  material  ornaments  which  they  are  all  so  eager 
to  obtain  as  setting  them  outside  the  vulgar.  Take  the  mean- 
est title,  that  of  Esquire,  which  signifies  that  he  who  bears  it 
is  the  faithful  servant  and  follower  of  those  who  have  devoted 
themselves  to  the  highest  and  noblest  deeds,  and  that  he  is  in  a 
probationary  state,  from  which  he  will  rise  to  be  himself  a 
knight  only  by  the  entertainment  of  high  aims  and  the  pursuit 
of  a  pure  and  spotless  life.  How  many  are  there  who  hold 
that  the  mere  acceptance  of  this  title  implies  any  such  obliga- 
tion ?    And  how  much  more  truly  may  the  same  be  said  of 


FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM.  101 

such  superior  titles  as  duke,  prince,  and  king  !  Look,  now,  at 
the  material  ornaments.  A  crown  or  a  coronet  signifies  that 
its  wearer  possesses  all  the  virtues  (symbolized  by  the  jewels 
with  which  it  is  studded)  united  in  one  ;  the  robe  signifies  the 
majesty  with  which  its  wearer  should  be  clothed  in  all  his  acts 
and  words,  just  as  the  ermine  of  the  judge  signifies  purity  that 
can  endure  no  spot,  and  as  the  wedding  garment  of  the  bride 
signifies  the  purity  of  mind  and  body  which  she  brings  to  the 
altar.  I  wonder  how  people  can  have  the  face  to  clothe  them- 
selves so  often  in  lies,  and  to  walk  about  the  world  like  so 
many  dishonored  promissory  notes. 


27th  September. 
This  must  assuredly  be  the  paradise  of  idlers.  I  have  sel- 
dom seen  a  place  where  the  time  passes  so  quickly,  so  pleas- 
antly, and  with  so  little  effort,  in  the  utter  absence  of  anything 
like  an  occupation.  There  are  not  very  many  people  left  now, 
but  he  who  is  fortunate  enough  to  possess  a  few  friends  among 
them  is  petted  and  spoilt  in  a  way  likely  to  make  the  ordinary 
life-militant  a  burden  to  him.  People  are  ready  to  amuse 
themselves,  and  above  all  anxious  to  amuse  their  friends,  and 
do  not  disdain  to  do  it  by  simple  unassuming  methods.  A 
drive  to  Dives,  relieved  by  a  game  of  "  quatre  coins,"  and  an 
impromptu  quadrille  in  a  casual  orchard  by  the  wayside  ;  an  ex- 
pedition to  drink  milk  at  a  farmhouse  ;  a  journey  to  Honfleur 
to  gloat  over  the  departure  of  that  commerce  which  Trouville 
is  rapidly  taking  away  from  it — all  these  are,  for  some  reason, 
not  by  any  means  a  bore,  but  the  most  delightful  pastimes 
possible.  Or  still  better  is  it  to  drive  to  an  outlying  farmer's 
for  a  whole  day  out.  You  take  your  dinner  with  you,  or 
rather  the  materials,  for  you  are  to  cook  it  yourselves,  and  the 
whole  of  the  operation  is  one  charming  series  of  adventures 
which  make  everybody  laugh,  although,  or  perhaps  because, 
there  is  nothing  in  them.  Here  is  Madame  la  Vicomtesse  beat- 
ing up  a  "  fromage  ^  la  cren^e"  till  her  dainty  arms  ache,  and 


102  FLOTSAM    AND   JETSAM. 

SO  carefully  canting  it  to  dry  that  it  incontinently  covers  the 
floor  of  the  dairy  ;  here  is  another  lady  chopping  herbs,  ma- 
nipulating mushrooms,  and  trying  all  she  knows  to  "  faire 
revenir"  the  fowl  which  it  is  confidently  hoped  will  turn  out  a 
fricasse.  Here  again  is  the  Comte  tunefully  cutting  up  every- 
thing he  finds  at  hand  into  the  fish,  and  here  the  Vicomte 
weeping  ruefully  over  the  strongest  onion  that  ever  man  sliced. 
One  volunteer  is  devoted  to  turning  the  leg  of  mutton  which  is 
browning  on  the  spit  before  an  immense  wood-fire,  and  slowly 
absorbing  the  soul  of  the  garlic  cunningly  introduced  into  it. 
Another  is  singeing  his  eye-brows  over  the  '*  soupe  a  I'oign- 
on,"  and  vainly  endeavoring  to  keep  the  beans  from  capsiz- 
ing every  two  minutes  into  the  ashes.  At  last  you  are  all  burnt 
out,  and  basely  leave  the  burden  and  heat  of  the  cooking  to 
the  farmer's  wife.  And  now  to  dinner.  What  fun  to  find  the 
Comte  declare  that  his  own  fish  is  uneatable  !  What  a  triumph 
to  discover  that  the  gigot  is  the  best  ever  roasted  ;  what  ineffa- 
ble delight  to  learn  that  although  everybody  has  washed  his 
hands  in  the  fricass6,  it  is  cooked  and  tender  ;  and  what  a 
crowning  victory  that  the  "  fromage  a  la  creme"  (which  has 
apparently  been  secretly  wiped  up  from  the  dairy  tiles)  is  deli- 
cious even  to  those  who  helped  to  make  it  !  You  have  earned 
your  dinner,  you  enjoy  it  as  never  dinner  was  enjoyed,  you 
eat  it  in  a  ceaseless  fire  of  banter,  and  drive  home  again  under 
a  moon  twice  as  big  and  twice  as  bright  as  nature,  to  wonder 
why  it  is  that  you  never  amused  yourself  before  in  your  life. 

****** 

28th  September. 
We  seem  to  spend  half  our  lives  in  living  and  the  other  half 
in  thinking  of  it.  While  we  live  we  do  not  think,  nor  when 
we  do  think  do  we  life.  No  man  ever  learns  anything  after 
thirty.  When  once  he  has  passed  that  age,  if  he  should  by 
chance  meet  aught  that  appears  new  to  him,  he  at  once  puts  it 
through  a  slight  process  of  mental  elaboration,  and  brings  it 
down  to  the  category  of  one  of  those  things  which  he  knew  and 


PLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM.  103 

had  accepted  already.  If  it  were  possible  to  get  an  accurate 
notion  of  the  mind  of  any  single  individual,  it  would  be  found 
that  in  fact  it  consists  of  some  eight  or  ten  principles  which  he 
has  accepted  as  rules  in  the  great  departments  of  life,  and  of 
one  or  two  ideas  which  he  has  had  himself,  and  which  he 
would  wish  to  accept  if  he  dared.  Once  this  stage  reached, 
you  may  present  to  him  the  most  extraordinary  and  novel  phe- 
nomena, apparently  the  most  opposed  to  his  principles  and  his 
ideas,  and  he  will  yet  find  means  to  bring  them  by  one  method 
or  another  into  his  little  circle.  It  is  after  all  not  so  difficult 
as  it  appears.  For  things  are  admittedly  not  what  they  seem, 
and  therefore  any  given  phenomenon  may  be  fairly  brought 
down  to  its  true  proportions  and  significance  other  than  such  as 
it  presents  on  the  outside.  Why,  then,  if  my  principles  will 
make  it  intelligible  upon  a  certain  possible  supposition,  should 
I  not  adopt  that  supposition  ?  A  man  has  committed  suicide 
under  circumstances  which  made  his  life  apparently  a  most 
pleasant  and  successful  one.  Say  that  I  have  adopted  the 
principle  that  there  is  no  God  and  no  law.  Then  I  bring  it  all 
to  this,  that  there  must  have  been  something  which  we  do  not 
know  in  his  life  which  rendered  it  impossible  to  meet  his  en- 
gagements, and  that  therefore  he  had  perfectly  the  right  thus 
to  declare  himself  bankrupt.  But  if  now  I  believe  that  there  is 
a  law  and  no  God,  it  becomes  a  question  whether  the  law  would 
allow  him  thus  to  repudiate  his  engagements.  Or  if  I  believe 
that  there  exist  both  God  and  law,  I  can  but  put  the  act  down 
to  ignorance  or  to  insanity.  In  either  event  I  arrive  at  a  con- 
clusion not  upon  the  real  merits  of  the  case,  but  by  referring  its 
apparent  merits  to  the  principles  I  believe,  and  by  adding  there- 
to the  belief  that  its  real  merits  must  be  in  consonance  with  one 
of  my  principles.  But  what  is  impossible  to  me  is  to  admit 
for  an  instant  that  the  afEair  has  taken  place  outside  my  circle 
of  belief.  Thus  it  is  that  the  man  of  the  fewest  beliefs  has  a 
task  to  perform  with  any  given  phenomenon  by  far  the  most 
difficult,  because  he  has  to  reduce  the  most  diverse  and  irregu- 
lar acts  down  to  the  fewest  heads.     This  shows  us  how  it  is 


104  FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM. 

that  faith  is  really  so  blessed,  and  it  should  lead  us  to  respect 
every  kind  of  faith,  and  never  to  blaspheme  even  those  which 
are  apparently  the  most  absurd.  He  who  believes  most  can 
explain  most,  and  do  what  we  will,  we  never  can  escape  from 
the  necessity  of  explaining  everything  that  happens. 
*  *  «  *  *  * 

I  once  knew  a  man  (he  was  over  fifty)  capable  of  travelling 
alone  with  a  pretty  woman  known  to  him  without  making  love 
to  her  ;  but  I  never  yet  knew  a  woman  or  a  child  who  could 
remain  quiet  half  an  hour  in  a  company  where  no  notice  was 
taken  of  them.  I  dined  yesterday  at  a  house  whence  a  young 
lady  departed  in  the  worst  of  bad  tempers,  because  the  hostess 
monopolized  the  attentions  of  the  men  ;  and  I  have  just  seen  a 
baby  of  three  years  pour  a  shovelful  of  sand  into  his  mother's 
coffee,  because  she  would  not  leave  her  breakfast  to  look  at  his 
feats  of  equitation  upon  a  stick.  I  believe  this  craving  for  at- 
tention to  be  the  chief  attraction  that  makes  women  and  chil- 
dren so  delightful.  It  is  a  kind  of  indirect  flattery,  as  though 
they  should  say,  "  I  only  exist  by  virtue  of  the  words  you  say 
to  me,  and  the  looks  you  cast  upon  me,"  and  there  has  not  yet 
been  found  a  man  able  to  resist  such  cogent  reasoning.  To  do 
that  one  would  have  to  regard  women  and  children  as  creatures 
more  or  less  reasonable,  not  invented  for  the  sole  purpose  of 
flattering  grown-up  men. 

«  «  4e  4tr  %  « 

Shoreham,  29th  September. 
Life  is  one  series  of  disillusions.  I  haul  out  of  Trouville 
basin,  and  choose  a  place  which  I  have  marked  as  a  bed  of 
beautiful  soft  mud,  only  to  find  myself  when  the  tide  goes 
down  on  top  of  a  sunken  boat  ;  I  leave  the  pleasant  shore  and 
delightful  memories  with  a  fine  westerly  breeze, which  develops 
into  three  parts  of  a  gale  of  wind  before  I  reach  my  port  ;  and 
now  here  is  Sheba  declining  to  eat  porridge  any  more,  and  Bill, 
who  wants  to  write  to  his  mamma — as  though  the  Billy  Baby 
could  not  contain  all  his  affections  and  thoughts  !  It  is  enough 
t/O  make  one  go  to  London  and  pay  all  one's  quarter's  bills. 


FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM.  105 


CHAPTER  XXII. 

London,  3il  October, 
London  is,  I  think,  the  only  place  in  the  world  in  which  one 
can't  endure  to  be  alone.  I  suppose  it  is  that  in  such  a  crowd 
as  is  always  here  one  feels  one's  loneliness  more  than  when 
there  is  nobody  to  look  at  it.  Or  maybe  it  is  that  there  is 
something  too  exciting  in  the  contact  of  other  men  and  women 
to  allow  one  to  be  content  with  that  mere  self-sufficient  train  of 
work  and  thought  which  in  other  places  is  so  delicious.  There 
is  something  feverish  in  the  very  air,  something  that  whips  one 
into  a  race  for  excitements  of  such  kind  as  may  be  obtained 
easily.  To  read  the  newspapers,  to  receive  and  answer  letters, 
to  hear  the  gossip,  and  to  see  one's  friends,  become  matters  of 
necessity  ;  to  read  in  the  proper  sense  of  the  word,  to  think  to 
any  good  purpose,  or  to  dine  alone,  are  matters  of  impossibil- 
ity. And  so  it  is  that  after  a  few  days  in  town  one  becomes 
so  surrounded  by  engagements,  and  so  launched  upon  undertak- 
ings of  a  small  kind,  that  it  seems  impossible  one  should  ever 
get  away  again. 

****** 

The  man  who,  going  to  a  town  infested  by  thieves,  and  be- 
ing recommended  to  carry  a  pistol,  objected  that  the  thieves 
would  steal  that  too,  was  not  so  unwise  in  his  generation,  if  we 
may  judge  by  ours. 

It  is  terrible  to  think  how  rare  a  courage  is  required  to  make 
any  real  effective  use  of  the  arms  which  nature  has  given  to  all 
of  us.  Rather  than  see  with  their  eyes  and  reason  with  their 
intelligence,  men  will  commit  themselves  body  and  soul  to  the 
first  bold  highwayman  they  meet.  We  hand  over  our  religion 
to  the  priest,  our  liberties  to  the  policeman,  our  knowledge  to 
the  philosopher,  our  public  affairs  to  the  politician,  as  though 
they  were  no  business  at  all  of  ours,  and  think  we  have  done 
well  when  we  hand  over  to  them  our  money  besides,  so  as  to 


106  FLOTSAM   AN^D  JETSAM. 

make  the  race  of  usurpers  and  the  desire  for  usurpation  eternal. 
For  truly  speaking  each  man  is  bound  to  be  priest,  policeman, 
philosopher,  and  statesman  for  himself.  The  result  of  his  de- 
clining and  thinking  to  delegate  these  his  most  important  func- 
tions, is  that  the  modern  highwayman  no  longer  offers  an  alter- 
native, but  demands  his  money  and  his  life — and  receives  both 
to  do  what  he  will  with  them. 


We  English  are  a  people  of  small  niggling  minds.  We  it  is 
who  invent  potato-parers,  lemon-squeezers,  patent  axles,  and 
'new  coal-scuttles  ;  and  so  appreciate  them  that  any  man  who 
can  claim  one  such  thing  may  make  a  fortune  with  it.  But  if 
it  be  merely  a  great  idea  that  he  has  conceived,  or  a  great 
principle  that  he  would  enforce,  he  had  best  hold  his  tongue, 
unless  he  is  prepared  to  take  to  himself,  and  to  enjoy  as  his 
reward,  cursing,  reviling,  contempt,  and  poverty.  There  are 
indeed  those  who  are  equal  to  this,  for  it  is  one  of  the  grand 
mistakes  to  suppose  that  there  is  no  enjoyment  in  the  evil 
things  of  this  world,  when  a  man  is  sustained  by  the  knowledge 
that  he  is  honest,  or  any  enjoyment  in  the  good  things  when 
that  knowledge  is  absent.  This  is  why  those  who  have  the 
good  things  are  so  anxious  to  remain  in  ignorance  and  inac- 
tion. They  always  fear  they  shall  discover  themselves  to  be 
impostors. 

****** 

An  ingenious  idea  is  that,  for  aught  we  know,  we  may  be  as 
surprised  when  we  die  as  a  man  is  when  he  awakes,  to  find  that 
we  have  been  dreaming  till  then,  and  have  only  then  come  back 
to  realities.  Of  course  it  may  be  equally  well  said  that  for 
aught  we  know  it  may  be  precisely  the  reverse  ;  and  this,  in- 
deed, is  the  common  belief.  I  myself  sometimes  think  that  if 
this  life  plays  anything  like  so  potent  and  beneficial  a  part  in 
the  next  as  the  next  does  in  this,  it  hardly  deserves  all  the  hard 
things  that  are  said  of  it.  Now  the  idea  I  have  quoted  rests 
upon  the  assumption  that  we  shall  remember,   that  we  shall 


FLOTSAM   AND  JETSAM.  107 

know  this  life  in  the  next  ;  whereas  the  whole  influence  of  the 
next  life  upon  this  arises  from  the  fact  that  we  do  not  know  it, 
and  that  we  therefore  fear  it  beyond  measure.  When  we  are 
all  engaged  in  seeking  knowledge,  it  seems  humiliating  enough 
to  remember  that  we  only  respect,  much  less  fear,  that  which 
we  know  not.  As  soon  as  we  thoroughly  understand  anything 
in  the  universe,  we  incontinently  despise  it,  and  run  away  after 
something  else.  A  man  who  can  explain  to  himself  why  a 
woman  loves  him,  who  thinks  he  can  see  that  it  is  for  his  intel- 
lect, for  his  looks,  for  his  position,  or  for  his  money,  cares 
nothing  for  it.  But  if  only  her  love  for  him  is  inexplicable 
upon  any  reasonable  grounds — if  it  appears  to  be  in  defiance  of 
all  laws  and  in  contradiction  of  all  possibility — then  he  will 
prize  it  and  wear  it  as  the  brightest  jewel  of  his  life. 

^  SfC  ^  SfC  !fC  ^ 

It  is  the  least  of  all  things  that  a  man  should  be  honest  ;  and 
withal  the  rarest.  For  although  we  all  know  that  none  of  our 
neighbors  can  deceive  us,  we  all  believe  that  we  can  deceive 
them  into  taking  the  semblance  for  the  reality.  And  what  is 
still  more  amusing  is  that  each  one  of  us  believes  that  he  alone 
of  all  men  is  entitled  to  be  dishonest,  that  each  claims  to  be 
paid  in  truth  and  to  repay  in  falsehood.  So  that  as  far  as  any 
advantage  to  be  gained  is  concerned,  it  comes  at  last  precisely 
to  the  same  thing  as  if  all  dealt  in  truth  alone. 

****** 


CHAPTER  XXIII. 

PoRTSLADE,  Sunday,  October  11. 

I  SHOULD  like  much  to  get  at  Bill's  inner  convictions  on  the 

subject  of  Dress  and  Society.     He  tried  me  once  when  bound 

for  a  ball  at  Cowes  on  a  wet  night  by  putting  out  my  sea-boots 

well  and  duly  greased.     He  believes  that  a  white  tie  may  be 


108  FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM. 

worn  unto  seventy  times  seven,  and  he  has  sent  me  out  to  dine 
and  stay  the  night  with  nothing  but  a  double-breasted  gray 
homespun,  embroidered  all  over  with  pockets,  for  my  only  dress 
waistcoat.  Now,  this  morning  I  warned  him  that  some  ladies 
were  coming  to  tea  to-day.  On  my  arrival  with  them  I  found 
knives,  forks,  and  soup-plates  ready  laid,  my  last  pot  of  apri- 
cot jam  open  on  the  table,  and  five  bottles  of  wine  on  the  side- 
locker.  Bill  himself  immediately  appeared  in  the  unwonted 
glory  of  a  paper-collar  and  a  violet  flannel  shirt,  while  in  order 
the  better  to  display  it  he  had  discarded  his  coat  altogether. 
His  face  was  washed  up  to  a  point  of  shininess  I  have  never 
seen  equalled,  and  as  he  appeared,  bearing  with  elephantine 
grace  the  teapot,  he  blushed  like  a  girl  at  the  sense  of  his  own 
magnificence. 

I  daresay  now  that  if  I  were  to  tell  Bill  that  there  is  any 
higher  or  other  standard  of  fine  dresing  than  a  paper-collar  and 
violet  shirt-sleeves,  he  would  suppose  I  was  joking.  And  of 
this  I  am  certain,  that  he  would  not  think  of  believing  me  were 
I  to  tell  him  that  he  looks  far  better  in  his  blue  jersey  and 
without  any  collar  at  all. 


October  12. 
There  are,  I  think,  three  really  good  moments  in  life.  Two 
of  them  may  be  left  to  the  experience  or  the  conjectures  of 
each  ;  the  third  certainly  is  that  when,  dog-tired,  you  throw 
yourself  down  anyhow  anywhere,  and  feel  yourself  passing  into 
that  thick,  black  sleep  that  has  no  memory  or  tinge  of  the 
outer  life,  and  from  which  earthquakes  would  not  wake  you. 
This  is  a  moment  one  always  seems  to  get  on  board  ship,  even 
if  one  has  not  been  on  deck  all  the  previous  night.  Who  shall 
paint  the  intense  luxury  of  turning  into  one's  little  bed  and 
jamming  oneself  up  in  a  last  struggle  with  the  heavy  eye-lids, 
knowing  that  one  will  neither  turn  nor  move,  but  will  find  one- 
self jammed  up  exactly  in  the  same  position  to-morrow  morn- 
ing ?     Then  with  one  plunge,  all  knowledge,  all  feeling,  all 


FLOTSAM  AND   JEtSAM.  109 

memory,  all  strife  and  trouble,  all  that  is  mean  and  low,  and 
withal  all  that  is  great  and  high,  are  left  behind — and  one  is 
bathed  in  grateful  non-existence.  Yet  there  are  those  who  pre- 
tend that  death  is  in  itself  horrible.  Ah  !  if  it  were  only  like 
this  sleep  ! 

****** 

19th  October. 

Two  days  ago  I  was  invited  to  dinner  "  to  meet  an  escaped 
convict, ' '  whom  I  found  to  be,  so  far  as  I  can  judge  upon  a 
short  acquaintance,  simply  one  of  the  noblest  and  finest  men  I 
have  ever  met — one  of  the  few  whom  no  money  could  tempt 
to  betray  a  trust,  and  no  fear  force  to  desert  a  principle.  He 
proved  this  in  the  sight  of  all  men  by  his  acts  ;  for  that  he  was 
condemned,  and  having  now  escaped  he  is  at  this  moment  be- 
ing tracked  by  the  police.  When  I  saw  him,  poor  who  had 
had  millions  in  liis  grasp,  full  of  courage  who  had  endured  un- 
told miseries,  eager  for  the  right  who  had  suffered  so  many 
wrongs  as  to  make  a  belief  in  it  almost  an  impossibility,  and 
when  I  thought  of  the  sleek  rogues.  A,  B,  and  C,  who  are  pro- 
tected by  what  is  called  the  law  in  the  possession  of  stolen 
moneys,  and  who  with  the  produce  of  their  thievings  have  been 
allowed  to  buy  not  only  immunity,  but  position  and  honor,  I 
felt  sick  at  heart,  and  inclined  to  believe  that  all  virtue  must  be 
lost  in  this  world. 

This  morning  I  saw  two  small  urchins  condemned  to  prison 
for  four  days  for  playing  cards,  and  a  third  sentenced  to  three 
days  for  playing  at  pitch  and  toss  ;  and  I  thought  of  the  Stock 
Exchange,  of  Tattersall's,  and  of  the  London  club  whist-tables. 
I  also  saw  a  woman  who  had  been  taken  and  put  into  jail  for 
calling  on  her  daughter  and  refusing  to  "  move  on"  without 
seeing  her.  Also  I  saw  a  man  who  had  been  apprehended  on 
a  certain  charge  ' '  remanded, ' '  or,  in  other  words,  sent  back 
to  prison  on  an  entirely  different  charge  which  had  never  been 
preferred. 

When   one  individual   has  seen  such  things  as  this  in  three 


110  FLOTSAM   AND  JETSAM. 

days,  how  many  injustices  must  there  not  be  in  daily  perpetra- 
tion under  the  forms  of  law,  and  how  natural  must  it  not  be 
that  those  who  directly  suffer  from  them  should  have  a  rank- 
ling feeling  of  discontent  ! 

***** 

Nothing  is  more  insecure  than  an  unchallenged  reputation. 
That  whicli  nobody  questions  always  passes  by  a  near  transition 
into  that  which  nobody  cares  for,  and  always  finally  ends  in 
being  that  which  nobody  believes.  If  I  had  the  misfortune  to 
be  a  popular  man  or  a  pretty  woman  I  would  engage  a  select 
band  of  friends  to  go  about  and  abuse  me.  Equally  an  unpop- 
ular man  or  an  ugly  woman  can  have  no  worse  enemy  than  the 
friend  who  defends  them  from  the  common  opinion.  For  in 
each  case  the  opposition  only  brings  out  the  strength  of  the 
strong  side  and  shows  it  to  be  greater  than  was  ever  before  sus- 
pected, or  than  ever  would  have  been  discovered  had  it  not 
been  challenged.  It  is  the  unfailing  trick  of  conversation  to 
modify  and  qualify  whatever  has  been  last  said,  the  secret  ob- 
ject being  always  not  to  deny  the  statement  altogether,  but  to 
substitute  for  it  the  improved  statement  of  the  interlocutor. 
When  you  declare  that  A  B  has  not  the  most  perfect  qualities, 
nor  C  D  the  most  perfect  features,  in  London,  I  cannot  any- 
how help  replying  that  they  nevertheless  have  remarkable  qual- 
ities and  features,  and  I  end  by  talking  myself  into  a  greater 
belief  in  them  than  ever  I  had  before.  So  also  if  you  declare 
that  E  F  is  even  a  greater  fool  than  he  looks,  I  at  once  enter 
the  lists  to  prove  that  he  looks  a  greater  fool  than  he  is,  which 
is  so  far  something  gained  to  him.  Contradiction  is  now  the 
soul  of  conversation,  and  *'  but  "  is  the  polite  form  in  which  it 
is  expressed. 

*****  * 

Just  as  we  most  of  us  circulate  the  best-looking  of  our  pho- 
tographs among  our  acquaintances,  so  we  most  of  us  desire 
rather  to  have  a  better  reputation  than  we  deserve  than  a  worse. 
Yet  manifestly  this  latter  is  far  the  most  profitable.     For  in  this 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM.  Ill 

case  those  who  know  us  are  surprised  at  every  turn  to  find  us 
better  than  we  have  been  painted,  and  thence  suppose  that  we 
must  be  even  better  than  we  are  ;  while  in  the  other  case  they 
discover  the  exaggeration,  and  in  mere  indignation  and  resent- 
ment at  the  deception  that  they  have  undergone,  strip  us  even 
of  the  good  qualities  we  do  possess.  Now  this  also  is  to  be  re- 
membered, that  nobody  has  the  reputation  he  really  deserves, 
for  to  have  that  he  would  require  to  be  really  known,  which 
none  is,  even  to  himself.  Since,  therefore,  we  must  all  be  re- 
puted either  better  or  worse  than  we  really  are,  it  were  wise  to 
pray  that  we  may  be  reputed  worse  rather  than  better.  From 
the  one  there  is  redemption  with  those  who  know  us,  who,  af- 
ter all,  are  the  only  ones  who  for  us  exist  ;  from  the  latter  there 
is  no  escape,  but  only  a  fearful  looking  for  a  justice  and  judg- 
ment to  come. 

*  ii  *  *  *  * 

Opinions,  as  they  are  called,  seem  to  me  to  bo  just  now  the 
curse  of  the  world.  They  are  the  Brummagem  imitation  of 
convictions,  arrived  at,  or  rather  adopted,  hap-hazard,  mostly 
upon  the  merest  hearsay,  without  knowledge  and  without  re- 
flection. Anybody  may  have  an  opinion  upon  anything,  and 
everybody  has  one  upon  everything.  It  is  so  easy.  You  have 
only  to  skim  a  leading  article,  or  to  catch  a  phrase  of  conversa- 
tion, and  the  thing  is  done.  Upon  the  Regent's  Park  explosion, 
upon  Count  Arnim,  upon  the  Carlists,  the  Pope,  the  prospects 
of  a  war  in  Europe,  or  what  not,  opinions  are  current  through- 
out Europe  ;  and  they  have  all  been  adopted  in  this  way.  Very 
different  is  the  method  by  which  a  conviction,  even  the  meanest 
and  smallest  of  them,  is  reached.  Hard  labor  to  acquire  infor- 
mation, much  reflection,  and  that  eternal  struggle  required  to 
cull  the  one  just,  necessary,  and  inevitable  conclusion  are  here 
indispensable  ;  and  there  are  very  few  who  will  give  so  much 
trouble  to  anything  unless  it  be  to  their  own  immediate  money 
matters.  Now  how  the  man  of  convictions  must  despise  and 
look  down  upon  the  man  of  opinions  !  He  has  built  himself 
painfully  upon  his  own  foundation  ;  he  knows  that  he  is  right, 


112  FLOTSAM   AND  JETSAM. 

while  the  rest  only  know  that  they  have  rashly  presumed  to  say 
that  somebody  else  is  right.  But  what  is  so  irritating  and 
wearing  is,  that  the  man  of  convictions  is  always  called  to  be 
tried  before  the  bar  of  the  men  of  opinions  ;  which  is  as  if  the 
light  should  be  judged  by  the  darkness,  or  the  seeing  given 
over  to  the  guidance  of  the  blind.  To  have  an  opinion  is  to 
have  a  false  imitation  of  a  conviction  ;  but  the  worst  falsehood 
of  all  is  to  present  the  opinion  as  though  it  were  a  conviction. 
Yet  how  few  are  ashamed  to  do  this  ! 


To  me  poetry — and  by  poetry  I  mean,  of  course,  neither 
verse  nor  rhyme,  which  have  indeed  been  terribly  prostituted 
to  base  uses — is  at  once  the  most  delightful  and  the  most  pain- 
ful reading.  To  leave  this  lesser  material  earth  and  to  launch 
forth  borne  upon  the  wings  of  the  poet  into  the  free,  universal, 
unfettered  ideal  space  is  grateful  beyond  all  things,  especially 
grateful  to  those  of  us  who  have  been  soiled  and  bruised  in  the 
rough  contact  with  material  things.  But  I  always  feel  equal 
sympathy  and  pity  for  the  poet.  I  see  him,  having  seized, 
perhaps  created,  an  idea,  grappling  and  wrestling  with  it,  striv- 
ing to  hold  it  and  to  lay  it  down,  placing  it  before  all  men,  so 
that  he  shall  say,  "  There,  that  is  the  whole  of  this  my  idea" 
— and  always  failing.  He  piles  word  upon  word,  illustration 
upon  illustration,  figure  upon  figure,  and  always  falls  short  of 
the  full  expression  of  what  is  within  him.  Language  fails,  the 
sympathies  of  men  fail,  figures  are  poor  and  wretched,  and  the 
idea  remains  forever  unrevealed  save  to  those  who  can,  with 
wings  of  their  own,  fly  side  by  side  with  the  poet,  and  reach 
with  him  at  that  he  seeks  to  grasp.  Yet  none  can  grasp  his  idea 
as  he  grasps  it ;  and  in  the  end  the  poet  remains  alone  with 
that  spark  of  divine  fire  which  he  has  snatched  from  heaven, 
which  he  has  sought  to  share  with  others,  and  which  always  at 
last  falls  back  upon  himself  and  inflames  him,  till  at  last  it  may 
even  haply  consume  him. 


FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM.  113 


CHAPTER   XXIV. 

At   Sea,  7th  November. 

Sam  is  very  like  a  diig-up  Northman.  He  has  hair  Uke 
bristles,  a  beard  like  a  yellow  furze-bush,  and  hands  like  legs 
of  mutton.  He  is  a  great  lump  of  a  man  built  on  the  Dutch 
model,  with  a  good  low  floor,  and  he  slouches  about  in  a  dog- 
ged, good-tempered  way,  which  nothing  could  ever  provoke 
into  smartness.  He  wears  a  beautiful  pair  of  ear-rings,  and 
has  been  an  oyster-dredger  all  his  life.  I  was  first  introduced 
to  him  at  Trouville,  and  now  I  have  shipped  him  in  place  of 
Tom,  who  has  fallen  sick  and  gone  home.  We  took  the  first 
watch  to-night  together,  and  have  naturally  soon  made  an  ac- 
quaintance. I  find  Sara  a  man  of  much  information,  and  excel- 
lently well-educated  for  his  business,  which  is  no  small  thing  in 
these  days  of  mere  literary  acquirements.  His  great  ambition 
is  to  leave  sailoring  and  get  a  place  in  some  London  warehouse. 
"  Oysters  is  so  scarce,  they  are,  you  can't  make  a  living  out  of 
'em."  In  his  boat,  which  was  just  about  the  size  of  the  Billy 
Baby,  eighteen  tons  register,  they  were  four  men  working  on 
shares  ;  one  share  for  each,  and  a  share  and  a  half  for  the 
owner  of  the  boat  and  gear — "  an  independent  gentleman,  he 
is,  that  keeps  a  fish-shop  in  Billingsgate  market."  But  then 
there  are  times  when  you  can't  go  out  for  a  month  together, 
and  he  and  his  mates  hadn't  cleared  above  a  pound  a  week 
each  for  a  long  time  past.  Yes,  it  would  be  a  great  thing  if 
they  could  be  allowed  to  sell  their  oysters  in  French  ports. 
They  will  generally  let  you  sell  enough  to  get  your  food,  but  not 
always.  He  minds  once  at  St,  Vaast  they  wouldn't  let  them 
even  do  that,  nor  even  let  them  lay  down  the  oysters  to  keep 
them  alive,  so  that  they  had  to  heave  them  overboard  and  lost 
them. 

It  is  very  improving  to  talk  to  Sara,  and  at  the  sarae  time 
very  disheartening.  I  believe  I  have  as  much  natural  ability  as 
Sam,  and  as  many  natural  advantages  in  every  way  ;  and  it 


114  FLOTSAM   AND  JETSAM. 

seems  very  hard  that  my  godfathers  and  godmothers  should 
liave  precisely  so  educated  me  as  to  make  a  failure  of  me,  while 
his  have  made  of  him  a  success.  For  all  the  real  necessary 
purposes  of  life  Sam  is  a  thousand  times  my  master,  and  it  is 
only  by  virtue  of  a  system  of  unreal  and  unnecessary  conven- 
tions that  I  happen  to  be  his,  Tf  we  two  found  ourselves  on  a 
desert  island,  I  should  necessarily  be  his  slave,  and  necessarily 
remain  so,  unless  he  would,  like  a  fool,  let  me  talk  to  him  and 
protocolize  him  out  of  his  natural  superiority.  For  he  can  act- 
ually do  much,  while  T  at  most  can  only  think  and  say  little. 
The  work  that  he  can  do  is  essential  in  all  times  and  places  ; 
that  which  I  do  is  optional  in  all,  and  only  even  possible  in  a 
few.  And  what  is  worse  for  me  is  that  he  has  really  learned 
to  do  his  work,  while  I  am  very  far  indeed  from  having 
learned  to  do  mine.  Every  time  he  hauls  his  dredge  he  has 
done  something  to  enrich  his  kind,  while  I  who  have  fished  all 
night  am  always  obliged  to  confess  at  last  that  I  have  taken 
nothing. 

1l  ^  Hi  !¥  *  * 

Off  Cape  Antifer,  8th  November. 
I  came  out  of  Shoreham  yesterday  bound  for  Dieppe,  and 
hoped  to  make  d'Ailly  light  about  midnight.  But  the  wind 
fell  to  a  calm,  and  we  were  soon  simply  driving  about  at  the 
mercy  of  these  spring-tides.  At  four  o'clock  this  morning, 
having  been  on  deck  all  night  so  far  and  made  nothing,  I 
turned  in  for  a  nap,  and  it  appears  that  a  thick  fog  came  on 
immediately  after.  Anyhow  at  half-past  five  I  became  aware 
of  a  far-off  voice  calling  me,  from  thousands  of  miles  away  as 
it  seems  in  sleep,  and  announcing  "  the  land  ;"  whereupon  turn- 
ing out  at  once  I  found  that  the  ship  had  been  put  about,  and 
that  we  were  so  near  the  shore  that,  though  it  could  not  be 
seen,  I  could  distinctly  hear  the  waves  breaking  on  it.  In  an- 
other few  minutes  I  made  out  through  the  dense  fog  a  light 
which',  from  its  size  and  from  the  way  in  which  I  knew  we 
must  have  drifted  with  the  ebb,  I  reckoned  could  be  no  other 
than  Fecamp,   and  no  farther  than  a  couple  of  miles  off  at 


FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM.  116 

most.  "We  were  therefore  half-way  between  Dieppe  and  Havre, 
and  as  the  flood-tide  was  now  well-nigli  half  done,  and  what 
little  wind  there  was  was  easterly,  I  put  the  helm  up  and 
squared  away  for  Havre.  It  is  now  midday,  the  fog  has  light- 
ened, but  the  wind  is  so  poor  that  it  is  a  mere  toss-up  whether 
we  get  in.  I  remember  a  friend  of  mine  who  lost  his  ship 
through  leaving  the  deck  for  a  sleep  in  the  Channel,  and  he 
was  very  much  blamed  for  it,  by  none  more  than  by  me.  Pos- 
sibly I,  too,  ought  to  have  known  better.  But  it  is  very  hard 
to  keep  awake  all  night  in  a  calm,  easy  as  it  is  in  a  gale — which 
things  are  an  allegory  if  ever  there  was  one. 

4c  *  4:  *  !i(  « 

Havre,  9th  November. 
Certainly  one  of  the  most  amusing  things  in  life  is  to  get  up 
at  seven  o'clock,  after  a  whole  night  in,  and  go  marketing  with 
Bill.  I  think  the  charm  of  it  lies  in  this,  that  one  comes  into 
direct  contact  at  first-hand  with  the  provisions  and  their  pro- 
ducers. It  is  impossible  to  take  any  interest  in  a  sole  that  has 
passed  through  a  dozen  dirty  tradesmen's  hands,  and  has  finally 
found  its  way  with  a  score  of  other  soles  to  the  slab  of  a  fish- 
monger who  has  nothing  in  common  with  it.  But  it  is  very 
diflEerent  if  you  can  buy  that  sole  of  the  fisherman  who  caught 
it.  You  seem  to  be  brought  nearer  to  the  sole's  own  existence, 
and  can  understand  his  having  left  a  wife  and  family  to  regret 
his  loss.  There  is  no  satisfaction  in  buying  the  freshest  of  but- 
ter from  a  lank-haired,  snub-nosed  cheesemonger,  or  the  finest 
of  fruit  from  a  Covent  Garden  Jew  ;  there  is  much  in  dealing 
with  the  very  dairy-maid  who  has  churned  the  butter,  and  can 
assure  you  that  it  was  made  yesterday  ;  much  in  getting  with 
your  pear  the  testimony  to  its  worth  of  the  peasant  who  has 
known  it  ever  since  it  was  a  blossom.  Then  alone  do  you  feel 
that  you  are  face  to  face  with  a  real  natural  product  of  the 
earth,  whereas  when  you  deal  with  the  middle-man,  or  third  or 
fourth  hand,  you  can  never  divest  yourself  of  the  idea  that 
what  you  are  buying  is  not  a  natural  product  at  all,  but  the  re- 
sult of  a  cunning  manufacture, 


116  FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM. 

Here  in  the  market,  filled  from  daylight  with  peasants  bring- 
ing in  their  produce,  one  breathes  the  very  air  of  dairies,  or- 
chards and  gardens.  Pleasant,  indeed,  is  it  to  walk  through 
the  stalls,  rich  and  glorious  with  all  the  kindly  fruits  of  the 
earth,  spread  out  in  their  brilliant  coloring  as  though  to  give 
an  earnest  that  the  world  is  grateful  and  lovable  if  we  only 
knew  it  and  would  see  it.  And  then  I  always  feel  so  much 
elevated  in  my  own  estimation  by  the  marketing  itself.  The 
science  may,  perhaps,  be  a  diflScult  one  ;  but  I  find  it  easy 
enough.  "  Thirty-six  sous  a  dozen  for  new-laid  eggs  !  Surely 
that  is  very  dear." — "  Mais  non,  monsieur." — "  Very  well, 
give  thera  to  me.  Pears  three  sous  each  !"  (exactly  the  same 
as  I  bought  a  week  ago  in  Covent  Garden  for  a  shilling),  "  and 
tomatoes  one  sou  !  Why  it  is  ruinous  ;  but  give  me  them  all 
the  same,  and  some  potatoes  and  salad,  and  a  pound  of  that 
butter.  Now,  Bill,  will  you  not  put  the  butter  and  eggs  in 
the  same  basket  as  the  coke  ?  anybody  would  think  you  had 
never  heard  the  fable  of  the  iron  pot  and  the  china  pot." 
Whereat  Bill  smiles  as  though  I  had  made  a  good  joke,  and 
takes  a  furtive  bite  at  the  green  apple  which  he  had  dispend- 
iously  bought  as  a  pleasant  thing  to  eat  the  first  thing  in  the 
morning.  The  amount  of  apples  that  boy  survives  is  marvel- 
lous. 

It  is  fearful  to  think  how  a  woman  or  a  work  takes  hold  of  a 
man  if  he  will  but  look  at  them.  Considered  in  general  they 
are  the  greatest  bores,  the  most  uneducated  nuisances.  To 
make  a  fool  of  oneself  for  a  woman,  to  give  oneself  up  to  a 
work — be  it  the  fairest  woman  that  ever  lived,  or  the  greatest 
work  ever  conceived — pah  !  what  nonsense  !  Yet  if  you  look 
but  out  of  the  comer  of  your  eye,  but  once,  the  merest  glance, 
at  that  one  particular  woman  ;  if  you  but  throw  the  shuttle  once 
through  that  warp  and  begin  to  see  the  pattern  growing  ;  if 
you  only  touch  lightly  that  work  ;  if  once  you  set  your  hand 
to  that  plough — there  is  no  help  for  you — you  must  go  on. 
And  the  further  you  go  the  more  you  are  identified  with  the 


FLOTSAM  AND   JETSAM.  117 

woman  or  the  work  ;  until  at  last  you  are  no  longer  at  all  your- 
self but  her  or  it.  I  fear  to  look  at  any  woman,  or  to  begin 
any  work.  If  one  could  but  be  as  the  lilies  that  grow  and  take 
no  thought  !  But  once  you  enter  the  magic  portals  you  leave 
all  hope  behind.  A  pair  of  eyes,  or  a  blue-book,  are  equally 
fatal  to  your  repose.  Look  for  a  moment,  read  for  a  page, 
and  you  are  lost,  and  given  over  henceforth  to  all  the  warring 
forces  that  each  man  has  within  him.  It  is  terrible  to  think 
of  it.  But  then  who  shall  tell  the  fierce  delight,  the  pangs  of 
painful  pleasure,  the  stinging  joys  that  he  feels  who  has  given 
himself  over  to  the  woman  or  the  work  that  has  taken  him  cap- 
tive ?  Ah  !  those  moments  when  one  grapples  with  the  mem- 
ory of  her,  with  the  pith  of  it  !  when  one  rises  exultiugly  feel- 
ing that  one  has  taken  a  hold,  and  walks  up  and  down  in  soli- 
tude, knowing  that  one  has  evolved  out  of  one's  nothingness 
a  feeling  or  an  idea.  I  do  not  know  which  is  the  more  deli- 
cious— to  be  certified  that  one  has  brought  into  existence  a  new 
love,  or  to  certify  to  oneself,  while  yet  no  other  knows  it,  that 
one  has  met  a  live  idea.  Yet  so  great  is  the  thraldom  of  each, 
that  one  is  sometimes  tempted  to  think  it  were  better  to  vege- 
tate like  a  cabbage  than  to  live  like  a  man. 

****** 
The  rage  for  business  will  one  day  be  recognized  as  one  of  the 
most  dangerous  forms  of  modern  folly.  A  big  State  governed 
by  a  big  Government  means  oppression  at  home  and  aggression 
abroad  ;  a  big  city  means  immense  vice  and  immense  misery, 
incapable  from  their  very  extent  of  being  dealt  with  ;  a  big 
corporation  means  enormous  opportunities  for  jobbery  ;  a  big 
manufacture  means  scant  work  ;  even  a  big  house  means 
great  waste  and  robbery,  and  great  lack  of  service.  Yet 
we  are  all  for  bigness,  as  though  it  were  in  itself  a  good. 
We  applaud  the  "  unification"  of  Germany,  which  is  ef- 
fected by  killing  many  small  states  to  make  one  big  one  ;  we 
plume  ourselves  over  the  exaggeration  of  London  ;  we  take  the 
foreigner  to  see  the  bloated  workshops  of  Birmingham  and 
Manchester,  and  show  him  the  Grosvenor  Place  mansions  as 


118  FLOTSAM   AI^TD  JETSAM. 

the  highest  efforts  of  man  in  the  way  of  habitations  ;  while 
we  are  even  now  engaged  in  the  endeavor  to  substitute  a  big 
London  vestry  for  the  small  ones  that  have  hitherto  existed. 
All  this  is  a  kind  of  lunacy.  There  may  be  a  necess^y  for  or- 
ganization, and  for  taking  away  from  each  a  part  of  his  individ- 
uality to  organize  the  whole  ;  but  if  so,  it  is  a  necessity  to  be 
deplored,  not  at  all  to  be  praised.  And  it  is  monstrous  when, 
as  is  now  the  case  in  the  centres  of  *'  civilization,"  it  reaches 
the  point  of  organizing  a  man  out  of  his  own  existence.  For 
a  man's  life  is  what  he  does  in  it,  and  the  essential  point  of  the 
big  system  is  that  by  it  he  is  taken  in  and  done  for  down  to 
his  smallest  details.  On  the  original  plan  of  little  communities, 
he  drew  his  own  water  from  the  spring  that  he  knew,  grew  and 
knew  his  own  produce,  fattened  his  own  pig,  brewed  his  own 
beer,  made  his  own  bread,  cleaned  his  own  doorstep,  defended 
himself  against  attack,  and  in  general  lived  among  and  through 
his  own  works,  thought  his  own  thoughts,  and  made  of  himself 
a  separate  man  from  all  others.  On  the  big  plan  he  is  watered 
and  market-gardened,  butchered,  brewed,  baked,  drained,  and 
policed  all  under  one  with  thousands  ;  lives  among  and  through 
the  works  of  others  ;  is  thought  for  by  able  editors  ;  and  is 
merely  one  unit  in  many  columns  of  figures.  The  complaint  I 
make  against  all  this  brigading  into  bigness  is  that  it  so  belittles 
the  man  that  it  brings  him  at  last  to  the  condition  of  a  mere 
pawn,  having  no  individuality  and  no  existence,  except  as  an 
atom  in  a  mass  of  other  men  to  be  organized,  enregimented,  and 
dealt  with  by  pure  wholesale.  The  foundation  of  it  all  is  the 
notion  that  men  are  not  worth  regarding,  or  dealing  with,  un- 
less you  can  get  a  large  number.  Yet  the  larger  the  body  of 
men  the  less  is  each  man  in  it,  and  we  seem  likely  to  go  on  in- 
creasing the  brigades  until  we  shall  have  brought  down  the  in- 
dividual  to  the  point  of  nothingness. 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM.  119 


CHAPTER  XXV. 

Havre,  1 7th  November. 
It  is  a  terrible  reflection  that  no  one  of  us  completely  under- 
stands what  another  says  to  him.  Perhaps  I  generalize  hastily, 
but  so  far  as  I,  at  any  rate,  am  concerned  I  find  that,  in  read- 
ing with  any  exactitude  any  author  who  really  says  anything,  I 
am  continually  brought  up  all  standing  by  the  conviction  that  I 
have  not  seized  through  the  words  he  employs  the  idea  that 
was  in  his  mind.  Then  ensues  a  painful  struggle.  I  read 
again  and  again  the  passage,  or  it  may  be  the  one  or  two  words 
which  I  have  failed  to  interpret  ;  I  wrestle  with  their  sense  ; 
and  often  at  last  I  am  compelled  to  admit  that  I  really  don't 
get  any  notion  of  the  idea  that  they  clothe  ;  and  even  if  I  do 
think  I  grasp  it,  it  is  merely  as  a  possible  notion  which  may  or 
may  not  be  the  true  one.  That  may  be  put  down  to  my  dul- 
ness,  but  then  most  of  us  are  dull  ;  were  it  otherwise  we  should 
have  little  need  of  writers  to  instruct  us  ;  and  the  hardship  of 
it  is  this — that  those  who  are  most  dull,  and  who  therefore 
have  the  greatest  need  of  the  instruction,  are  precisely  those 
who  have  the  least  chance  of  obtaining  it.  In  truth  it  cannot 
be  otherwise  ;  for  each  one  of  us,  if  we  only  knew  it,  gives  his 
own  special  idea — the  result  of  his  thinking  and  living,  or  of 
the  want  of  them — to  each  word  he  uses  or  meets  ;  so  that  we 
are  in  general  all  talking  a  different  language  each  to  each. 
Were  it  otherwise,  universal  wisdom  would  ensue  in  a  few  gen- 
erations. As  we  are  told,  for  men  who  "  have  all  one  lan- 
guage," "  nothing  will  be  restrained  from  them  which  they 
have  imagined  to  do  ;"  but  once  our  language  confounded,  we 
are  and  must  be  "  scattered  abroad  upon  the  face  of  all  the 
earth,"  incapable  of  giving  or  of  receiving  support ;  each  fight- 
ing for  his  own  hand  and  breaking  his  brother's  head  solely 
because  he  does  not  understand  what  he  says.  If  only  once  we 
could  get  to  understand  each  other  we  should  be  as  the  gods. 
But  there  is  no  danger  of  that  ever  occurring. 


120  FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM. 

18th  November. 

Wten  one  has  few  friends  it  is  cruelly  hard  to  lose  one  of 
them,  and  I  fear  I  have  lost  one  of  my  very  best.  A  bitter 
experience  had  taught  me  the  necessity  of  exercising  a  little 
gentle  constraint  upon  the  female  sex  wherever  there  are  attrac- 
tions of  any  kind  available  beyond  the  dull  everyday  life  ;  and 
I  had  consequently  carefully  tied  up  the  Princess  of  Sheba  from 
the  time  we  came  into  this  port.  Four  days  ago,  however,  she 
slipped  her  collar  and  ran  ashore,  and  from  that  time  to  this  I 
have  not  been  able  to  obtain  the  slightest  trace  of  her.  I  have 
been  to  the  police,  I  have  offered  rewards,  I  have  employed 
men  to  search,  I  have  set  the  whole  town  of  Havre  upside 
down,  I  have  had  young  ladies  of  every  character  and  complex- 
ion brought  to  me — white,  black,  brindled,  large,  small, 
straight,  and  curly — but  Sheba  I  have  been  utterly  unable  to 
find,  and  I  begin  to  fear  that  she  is  lost  to  me  forever,  lured 
away  probably  by  some  unscrupulous  gandin  without  respect 
for  family  ties,  and  perhaps  taken  clean  off  to  Paris,  where  she 
will  live  in  splendid  vice,  and  forget,  or  maybe  only  remember 
to  despise,  her  home  and  her  friends. 

It  really  is  very  hard  to  experience  a  misfortune  like  this 
when  one  knows  that  one  has  done  nothing  to  deserve  it.  Now 
she  is  lost  to  me,  I  prize  her  far  more  than  I  had  ever  sup- 
posed possible.  I  remember  her  little  ways  and  even  her  little 
faults  with  tenderness  and  regret — the  clever  stealthiness  with 
which  she  would  creep  down  into  the  cabin  in  bad  weather, 
and  the  air  of  candid  surprise  she  would  take  when  I  found  her 
asleep  in  her  wet  coat  on  my  best  cushions.  I  recall  that  par- 
ticular expression  she  knew  how  to  put  into  her  back  at  break- 
fast and  dinner-time,  the  bashful  yet  decided  protest  she  made 
when  offered  biscuit  instead  of  meat,  the  wild  races  round  the 
deck  with  which  she  would  celebrate  my  arrival,  the  intrepid 
barkmg  with  which  she  would  sometimes  defend  me  from  sleep 
and  the  ship  from  an  imaginary  enemy  the  night  through.  I 
think  of  her  wistful  brown  eyes,  of  the  way  she  would  nestle 
up  against  my  legs  when  I  took  a  trick  at  the  helm,  and  of  the 


FLOTSAM  AKD   JETSAM.  131 

thousand  little  acts  by  wliich  she  revealed  her  character  and 
almost  persuaded  me  that  we  were  five  and  not  four  souls  on 
board.  I  think  of  all  this  and  I  am  aware  that  I  have  really 
experienced  a  great  misfortune  not  to  be  repaired.  Poor  Sheba  ! 
you  will  hardly  find  one  who  feels  for  you  my  affection.  At 
least,  I  pray  you  may  be  happy. 

Diderot  has  remarked  that  whoever  objects  to  the  established 
order  of  things  complains  in  effect  of  his  own  existence  ;  since 
he,  such  as  he  is,  is  but  the  product  precisely  of  that  particular 
order  of  things.  In  the  same  way  a  German  has  declared  that 
"  Man  is  what  he  eats. "  Both  which  propositions  are  true  and 
false  ;  for  just  as  any  given  man  is  the  product  of  the  estab- 
lished order  of  things  plus  his  notion  of  them,  so  also  a  man  is 
what  he  eats  plus  what  he  does — which  greatly  changes  the 
matter.  Indeed,  we  may  go  a  step  farther,  and  say  that  a  man 
only  exists  in  proportion  as  he  contributes  something  from  him- 
self to  the  established  order  of  things,  and  is  something  more 
than  what  he  eats.  Adam  only  began  to  fulfil  his  destiny  wjien 
he  gave  names  to  all  cattle,  and  to  the  fowls  of  the  air,  and  to 
every  beast  of  the  field  ;  that  is  to  say,  when  he  invested  the 
established  order  of  things  with  notions  of  his  own. 

IJC  ^  JJC  T»  "K  " 

There  are  many  men  who  affect  to  despise  the  opinion  of 
their  fellows,  but  I  have  never  yet  found  one  who  really  did 
despise  it.  And  this  is  natural  ;  for,  say  what  we  will,  we  all 
know  (as,  indeed,  the  most  important  and  interesting  things 
we  know  are  precisely  those  we  never  do  say)  that  it  is  mainly 
this  opinion  that  makes  us  what  we  are.  The  great,  the  little, 
the  virtuous,  the  vicious,  the  strong,  the  weak,  are  what  they 
are  by  no  other  title  than  the  consent  of  their  neighbor,  and 
their  own  belief  founded  on  that  consent.  If  all  those  mem- 
bers of  mankind  of  whom  I  have  any  knowledge  agree  in  de- 
claring me  to  be  great  and  virtuous,  I  have  no  choice  but  to  take 
the  appearances  of  greatness  and  virtue,  even  if  I  be  the  mean- 


122  FLOTSAM   AND  JETSAM. 

est  and  most  vicious  of  men  ;  and  by  habit  this  grows  upon  me 
until  at  last  I  am  persuaded  myself  of  my  greatness  and  virtue. 
So,  equally,  if  you  tell  me  I  am  a  scoundrel — why,  then,  I  am 
a  scoundrel,  though  I  should  be  virtue  in  person.  And  if,  now, 
one  or  two  of  you  discover  and  say  that  I  am  nothing  of  the 
kind,  that  is  immaterial,  and  will  remain  of  no  effect  at  all 
until  you  have  converted  some  section  of  mankind  to  consent 
generally  to  your  discovery — and  even  then  it  is  only  of  effect 
in  that  section.  For  all  other  sections  I  remain  a  scoundrel  ; 
when  among  them  I  must  perforce  confess  inyself  a  scoundrel, 
and  as  such  alone  can  I  act.  We  most  of  us  know  a  great  njan 
or  two  who  is  really  but  a  miserable  poor  creature  ;  yet  he  is 
not  therefore  dishonest,  for  he  has  been  so  often  told  that  he  is 
great  that  he  thoroughly  believes  it,  and  no  one  would  be  more 
surprised  than  he  if  he  were  suddenly  brought  face  to  face  with 
the  demonstration  that  he  is  an  impostor. 

****** 

The  whole  art  of  getting  everything  consists  in  producing 
the  belief  that  you  will  accept  nothing.  No  offer  is  ever  hon- 
estly made  in  this  life  that  does  not  come  arm  in  arm  with  the 
fear  of  refusal.  For  those  who  make  an  offer  make  it  with  the 
object  of  receiving,  not  of  conferring,  a  favor.  If  once  you 
let  them  know  that  the  reverse  is  the  case,  you  are  lost  for  that 
time.  If  once  it  is  suspected  that  you  really  want  anything, 
that  is  precisely  the  thing  that  you  will  never  get.  I  know  a 
man  who  has  found  means  to  make  the  woman  he  loves  believe 
that  he  thinks  her  a  bore.  But  he  is  very  clever,  and  he  will 
have  his  reward. 

****** 

Havre,  19th  November. 
For  the  whole  of  the  last  week  there  have  been  lying  here 
some  five-and-twenty  English  fishing-boats,  forced  to  run  in  for 
shelter,  and  unable  to  face  the  constant  gales  that  have  been 
blowing.  It  is  a  piteous  sight  to  see  these  poor  fellows  doing 
down  to  the  jetty  every  morning   to  "  have  a  look   at  the 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM.  123 

weather,"  and  coming  back,  forced  to  decide  that  it  is  still 
impossible  to  go  to  sea.  They  slouch  about  the  town  in  their 
long  boots,  looking  in  at  the  shop- windows  in  a  melancholy 
way,  for  they  know  that  want  of  work  for  them  means  want  of 
food.  One  little  boat  left  Shoreham  eight  days  ago  with  only 
a  sovereign  on  board  for  the  whole  crew,  and  they  have  only 
food  for  two  days  more,  and  no  money  to  buy  more  when  that 
is  gone.  But  they  are  kind  and  helpful,  these  rough  men,  and 
of  sturdy  independence,  too.  For  a  friend  of  mine  offered  to 
give  them  some  money  to  help  them  out  of  their  difficulty  ; 
but  they  refused  it,  saying  that  they  thought  they  could  get 
along  till  the  weather  moderated,  *'  and  then  you  see,  sir,  we 
borrow  off  each  other."  A  touching  revelation,  it  seems  to 
me,  this  of  men  who  do  not  need  to  ask  who  is  their  neigh- 
bor. 

****** 

Havre,  20th  November. 
The  French  have  certainly  the  most  ingenious  contrivances 
for  wasting  time  of  any  people  extant.  I  have  had  to  pay  two 
and  fourpeuce  halfpenny  for  port  and  sanitary  dues,  and  it  has 
taken  Ned  and  me  all  day  to  do  it  between  us.  First  I  went 
to  the  Custom  House,  where  I  was  blandly  requested  to  leave 
my  register  and  to  go  to  the  Bureau  Sanitaire.  The  Bureau 
Sanitaire  I  found  tenanted  by  two  functionaries  playing 
draughts,  who  politely  interrupted  their  game  to  ask  me  my 
names.  Christian  names,  age,  place  of  birth,  what  my  cargo 
was,  and  so  forth  ;  all  which  they  inscribed  on  a  document 
which  they  directed  me  to  take  back  to  the  Custom  House  to 
be  vise.  Having  done  this,  I  was  instructed  to  go  on  to  the 
Mairie,  at  least  a  mile  distant.  At  the  Mairie  it  took  me  a  good 
half-hour  to  find  the  proper  room,  having  discovered  which  I 
had  to  wait  till  two  questions  relating  to  the  armee  territoriale, 
and  one  relating  to  a  permission  de  mariage,  were  disposed  of 
before  my  payment  of  one  and  fivepence  halfpenny  could  be 
received.  Armed  now  with  the  solemn  receipt  of  the  French 
Republic  for  that  sum,  I  returned  to  the  Custom  House  for  the 


124  FLOTSAM   AND  JETSAM. 

third  time,  and  after  another  hunt  up  and  down  wrong  staircases 
and  through  wrong  rooms,  had  the  satisfaction  of  paying  eleven- 
pence for  port  dues.  Returning  now  to  the  first  office,  I  was 
at  last  allowed  to  take  again  my  papers,  and  therewith  the  per- 
mission to  leave  the  port  of  Havre  when  I  liked.  To  achieve 
this  result  I  have  had  to  walk,  including  staircases,  a  good  four 
miles,  and  to  hold  no  less  than  seven  interviews.  If,  now,  I 
had  had  to  pay  a  louis,  a  lifetime  would  not,  at  the  same  rate, 
have  sufficed  for  it. 


CHAPTER   XXVI. 

London,  8th  December. 
There  is  a  kind  of  man  who  lives  by  making  distinctions. 
He  has  no  ideas  of  his  own,  but  he  lies  in  wait  for  the  ideas  of 
other  men  in  order  to  dilute  them  with  some  trivial  condition 
of  circumstance.  "Yes — but,"  is  his  ensign,  and  with  that 
he  commonly  begins  what  he,  and  many  besides,  hold  to  be 
contributions  to  the  stock  of  thought  on  any  given  subject. 
He  is  a  man  of  half-tones  and  minor  thirds,  a  whitewasher  of 
cathedrals,  an  impertinent  babbler  to  the  gods,  not  compre- 
hending thunder.  If  to  such  an  one  you  say,  "  The  sun 
shines,"  he  will  straightway  challenge  you  with  the  shade  of  a 
dunghill  ;  if  you  tell  him  of  noble  aspirations,  he  will  tell  you 
of  bakers'  bills  ;  if  you  pipe  love,  he  dances  lust  ;  if  you  sing 
spirit,  he  rejoices  flesh  ;  if  you  question  of  the  height,  he  an- 
swers from  the  depth.  He  is  a  critic  of  perspective  and  draw- 
ing, there  where  both  have  been  sacrificed  to  conception.  And 
the  worst  of  him  is  that  he  has  not  the  grace  to  be  silent.  He 
it  is  who  has  reduced  God  to  dogma,  and  the  Law  to  writing. 
He  made  the  golden  calf  because  he  could  see  only  with  his 


FLOTSAM  ANTD  JETSAM.  125 

eyes.     And  he  still  exists  to  weary  the  very  soul  out  of  the  im- 
patient.    How  long,  how  long  ? 

«  4l(r  *  *  «  IK 

The  distinguishing  characteristic  of  the  modern  Englishman 
is  his  extreme  dislike  to  telling  or  hearing  the  truth,  whenever 
the  truth  is  of  any  importance.  He  will  tell  or  listen  to  it 
"  confidentially  "  and  in  secret  ;  indeed,  then  it  is  the  only 
thing  he  really  cares  to  hear  or  to  tell  ;  but  there  is  no  trouble 
he  will  not  take  and  no  trick  he  will  not  play  to  avoid  meeting 
or  stating  it  to  the  dreaded  third  person,  however  proper  and 
important  it  may  be  that  the  third  person  should  know  it. 
We  all  know  about  this  wife  and  that  minister  ;  but  he  who 
should  tell  the  husband  or  the  country  what  it  so  imports  them 
above  all  to  know,  would  be  regarded  as  a  treacherous  danger- 
ous person.  And  what  is  so  irritating  is  that  we  yet  profess  to 
be  greater  lovers  of  truth  than  any  other  people  on  the  face  of 
the  earth.  How  much  better  would  it  be  if  wo  were  frankly 
to  admit  ourselves  to  be  the  greatest  professors  of  lies  ! 
****** 

When  I  hear  people  talk  of  different  styles  and  periods  of 
art,  of  Cinque-cento,  Renaissance,  of  the  Barocco,  the  Greek, 
and  the  Italian,  I  am  impatient.  For  it  appears  to  me  that  the 
whole  and  the  only  interest  lies  in  men,  and  the  only  thing 
worth  considering  is  the  life  and  character  of  the  human  beings 
who  produced  these  different  styles  as  shown  in  their  works. 
To  know  them  is  the  essential,  and  their  fruits  are  only  inter- 
esting  because  it  is  by  their  fruits  that  we  do  know  them.  Did 
they  lead  a  spiritual  or  a  merely  material  life  ?  Did  they  work 
toward  a  high  ideal,  forgetting  and  disregarding  all  else,  or 
did  they  falsely  betray — they  the  chosen  exponents  of  it — all 
that  is  high  and  noble  in  the  composition  of  our  nature  ?  That 
is  the  point,  and  when  once  that  is  appreciated  it  disposes  for- 
ever of  any  attempt  to  reproduce  or  to  imitate  any  given  style 
of  art.  For  in  order  to  produce  the  same  fruits  you  must  have 
the  same  men.     You  cannot  build  a  Gothic  cathedral  by  simply 


126  FLOTSAM  AND   JETSAM. 

copying  Gothic  works  ;  what  is  indispensable  is  to  have  the 
Gothic  reverence  and  sense  of  awful  mystery,  the  Gothic  fidelity 
and  laboriousness,  and  the  Gothic  religion  and  superstition. 
Neither  can  you  do  work  like  Palladio's  nor  like  Michael  An- 
gelo's  without  living  their  life.  You  cannot  be  venal  or  even 
commercial  in  your  ordinary  life,  and  yet  be  pure  and  spiritual 
in  your  work.  And  since  all  artists  are  now  venal  and  com- 
mercial it  is  absurd  to  expect  from  them  work  of  any  other 
kind,  and  doubly  absurd  to  expect  it  in  the  shape  of  an  imita- 
tion of  the  work  of  men  who  were  not  as  they  are. 

Nobody  seems  now  to  see  that  the  ideal,  which  (when  we  are 
true  to  ourselves)  we  are  all  working  up  to,  must  be  taken  not 
from  among,  but  from  above  and  outside  of  mankind.  When 
the  soldier-spirit  burns  within  a  man,  he  thinks  it  suflBcient  to  be 
a  Napoleon  ;  if  he  is  in  philanthropic  mood,  he  conceives  that 
he  may  do  as  much  as  Howard  ;  if  a  statesman,  he  may  reach 
as  high  as  Sully  or  Pitt  ;  if  an  artist,  as  far  as  Michael  Angelo; 
if  a  poet,  he  would  emulate  Dante  or  Shakespeare.  Yet  these 
men  are  themselves  the  proof  that  this  is  not  enough.  They 
reached  at  something  higher  than  themselves  ;  they  knew  of 
and  sought  better  things  than  ever  they  did — for  no  man  at- 
tains to  his  ideal.  And  to  reach  no  higher  than  them,  is  to  be 
content  to  fall  below  them.  To  make  what  has  been  done  the 
limit  of  what  may  be  done,  is  to  accept  a  continued  and  in- 
creasing deterioration.  To  do  well  man  must  aim  at  the  Best, 
and  the  Best  has  never  yet  been  done  in  aught.  Is  not  this 
also  an  argument,  if  any  were  needed,  to  prove  the  necessity 
for  that  mysterious  presentment  of  the  Best  which  we  call  God  ? 
Is  not  this  also  a  suflBcient  reason  why  that  Best  should  always 
be  and  remain  mysterious  and  incapable  of  being  touched, 
handled,  and  reasoned  upon  ? 


FLOTSAM   AND  JETSAM.  137 


CHAPTER   XXVII. 

London,  loth  December. 
An  irritating,  terrible,  despairing  feature  of  life  is  the  eter- 
nal round  in  which  the  individual  and  the  mass  give  each  other 
the  lie  as  to  the  very  fundamental  nature  of  things.  "  I  am 
everything,"  says  the  individual  ;  "  there  are  grouped  around 
me  men,  laws,  conditions,  incidents,  past,  present,  and  future, 
but  they  are  all  subordinate  to  me,  who  am  in  reality  the  one 
only  important  phenomenon  that  the  "Universe  has  produced." 
"  You  lie  !"  replies  every  creature  and  thing  in  a  brutal 
chorus  ;  "  you  are  nothing,  you  do  not  exist.  You  a  centre  ! 
You  are  not  even  in  any  way  necessary,  much  less  indispensa- 
ble, and  if  you  were  not,  none  would  know  your  place.  When 
you  fall  overboard,  as  you  must  some  day,  the  waters  will  close 
over  you,  and  the  ship  will  go  on  as  before,  without  being 
aware  that  you  who  think  yourself  the  captain  have  disappeared. 
What  you  are,  that  we  have  made  you,  and  when  you  are  no 
longer,  we  can  as  readily  make  another  if  we  should  want  such 
a  one.  Prophet,  Priest,  King,  nay,  the  very  Divinity  in  per- 
son though  you  claim  to  be,  we  reck  not  of  you,  and  can  match 
you  with  one  as  good  for  our  purpose  whenever  you  may  disap- 
pear."  And  the  worst  of  it  is  that  this  is  all  true,  and  that  it 
is  nevertheless  impossible  for  any  one  of  us  to  believe  it. 

sp  ^  ^  ^  ^  V 

This  "  vile  body  "  of  ours  is  indeed  vile.  It  is  the  inevita- 
ble companion  and  traitor  to  all  we  do.  There  never  was  such 
an  irritating  machine  as  this,  through  which  and  by  which  alone 
we  are  condemned  to  work.  It  is  like  a  lady's  watch — always 
out  of  repair  ;  but  far  worse  than  a  lady's  watch,  because  no- 
body has  the  secret  of  repairing  it.  As  tbese  machines  go,  I 
believe  mme  to  be  a  pretty  good  one.  But  at  the  best  it  is 
always  coming  in  at  critical  moments  with  demands  for  rest 
and  fuel,  and  interrupting  thereby,  or  even  quite  upsetting,  all 


128  FLOTSAM   AND  JETSAM. 

the  work  one  wishes  to  do  with  it.  I  can  understand  men 
breaking  it  out  of  sheer  impatience.  For  if  you  force  it,  it  will 
break  you.  Sully  tells  us  how  Henry  IV.  and  his  friends, 
after  many  days'  fighting  in  the  streets,  were  fain  to  lean  up 
against  the  houses  and  thus  rest,  turn  and  turn  about  ;  and  I 
remember  a  Communard  leader  who  told  me  that  in  Paris, 
during  the  last  days  of  the  fight,  he  was  so  utterly  overcome  by 
the  want  of  sleep,  that  he  cared  not  what  might  happen,  and 
would  even  have  regarded  it  as  a  happy  deliverance  to  be  set 
up  against  a  wall  and  despatched.  It  is  bad  enough  to  have 
a  soul,  but  really,  when  dispassionately  regarded,  it  is  much 
worse  to  have  a  body. 

****** 
Nothing  seems  to  me  to  prove  more  lamentably  tlie  extinc- 
tion of  the  race  of  real  men,  and  the  contemptuous  indifference 
with  which  they  are  regarded,  than  the  oft-repeated  question, 
"  Who  is  he  ?"  and  the  nature  of  the  answer  always  expected 
to  be  made  and  always,  in  fact,  made  to  it.  Properly  and 
naturally  the  only  rational  answer  would  be,  that  he  is  a  man 
of  such  and  such  a  kind  and  degree  of  intellect  and  moral 
quality,  that  he  has  done  thus  and  thus  and  said  this  and  this, 
and  that  his  individuality  and  place  in  the  world  are  so  marked 
out.  There  is  no  relevant  or  important  thing  to  be  said  out  of 
this  range.  Yet  nobody  dreams  of  expecting  or  of  giving  such 
an  answer  to  the  question.  The  reply  always  avoids  the  man 
himself,  and  fastens  itself  exclusively  on  his  purely  accidental 
and  incidental  surroundings.  He  is  the  son  of  this  man,  who 
lives  in  that  county,  and  has  an  estate  near  to  that  of  the  other 
man  ;  his  sister  married  A  B  ;  his  mother  was  so  much  talked 
of  with  C  D  that  people  confuse  his  genealogy  ;  and  he  is  very 
well  or  very  ill  off,  as  the  case  may  be.  This  is,  in  effect,  an 
admission  that  the  man  himself  is  of  no  importance  whatever 
in  the  eyes  of  those  who  are  professedly  speaking  of  him  ;  or 
rather  it  is  a  general  confession  that  there  is  no  such  creature 
as  a  man  left  remaining  among  us,  so  far  as  the  world  knows  or 
wres  to  know.     Th^t  there  are,  nevertheless,  real  men  in  ex- 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM.  129 

istence — that  is  to  say,  men  doing  real  work — is  probable  ;  but 
then  they  are  mainly,  and  often  merely,  themselves  ;  where- 
fore, there  is  no  answer  possible  to  the  question  who  they  are  ; 
wherefore  they  are  nobody — which  is  precisely  what  we  delight 

to  prove. 

****** 

The  Billy  Baby  is  at  last  laid  up  for  the  winter,  dismantled 
of  all  her  gear,  with  her  mast  painted,  two  coats  of  varnish  on 
her  deck,  and  Ned  in  charge  till  I  can  so  far  emancipate  myself 
as  to  return  to  her — to  my  real  home,  where  alone  I  feel  as 
though  I  belonged  more  or  less  to  myself.  Ned  writes  me  the 
most  delicious  letters,  in  which  he  mixes  up  the  weather,  the 
stores,  the  casualties  at  Shoreham,  the  desire  he  has  to  spend 
his  first  Christmas  since  fifteen  years  at  home,  and  the  breaking 
of  two  bottles  of  wine,  in  the  most  approved  literary  manner. 
Bill  has  returned  to  his  mamma,  and  is  probably  now  on  his 
way  to  the  Dogger  Bank  for  a  course  of  fishing.  Tom  has 
also  gone  on  the  same  business,  and  without  coming  to  see  me 
in  London,  which  he  was  afraid  to  do  for  fear  of  being  run 
over  in  the  streets.  This  delights  me  as  being  another  proof 
that  we  only  really  fear  that  with  which  we  are  not  acquainted. 
It  would  seem  as  absurd  to  him  to  be  afraid  in  a  gale  at  sea,  as 
it  does  to  many  to  be  afraid  in  a  press  of  traffic  in  the  Strand — 
yet  this  latter  ordeal  proved  too  much  for  Tom.  It  is  very  nec- 
essary and  proper  that  nobody  should  ever  have  returned  from 
Death  to  give  an  account  of  it — for  there  are  those  who  might 

laugh. 

****** 

I  remember  I  once  had  a  terrible  interview  which  I  certainly 
shall  never  forget  ;  yet  when  I  now  recall  it,  I  am  aware  that 
into  my  share  of  it  there  entered  no  small  amount  of  conscious 
acting,  and  that,  indeed,  I  should  have  a  difficult  task  were  I 
to  attempt  to  say  where  the  real  feeling  ended  and  the  acting 
began.  Not  that  I  overacted  what  I  really  felt — far  from  it  ; 
but  that  I  remember  that  I  kept  all  the  time  a  conscient  watch 
over  myself  rather  with  the  intention  of  underacting  it.     In 


130  FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM. 

slioi-t,  I  know  now  that  half  my  appearance  and  words  were  au 
imposture.  And  this,  I  take  it,  is  always  true  whenever  a  man 
is  deeply  moved  ;  were  it  otherwise  he  would  go  mad  then  and 
there.  From  this  he  is  only,  indeed,  saved  by  that  very  intel- 
lectual and  artistic  criticism  which  he  is  making  upon  himself, 
and  endeavoring  to  carry  into  force  in  the  tone  of  his  voice, 
the  look  of  his  eye,  and  down  to  the  very  trick  and  motion  of 
foot  and  hand,  whenever  hfe  is  really  moved  in  the  presence  of 
another.  A  man  is  never  all  real  when  he  is  before  a  second 
man,  still  less  when  he  is  before  a  woman.  This  comes  not 
always  or  even  often  of  dishonesty  of  purpose,  but  rather  of 
the  utter  inadequacy  of  all  language  and  all  gesture  to  convey 
anything  like  a  true  impression  of  that  confused  storm  which 
rages  in  him  when  the  springs  of  the  inner  being  are  wrung, 
and  the  whole  complex  machinery  is  thrown  into  its  original 
chaos.  A  man  learns  not  to  be  himself  all  his  life  long  ;  he 
has  painfully  and  by  long  effort  clad  himself  in  the  garments 
prescribed  for  his  particular  condition  ;  how  then  shall  he  be 
not  ashamed  when  he  suddenly  finds  himself  naked  ? 


CHAPTER  XXVIII. 

If  anybody  ever  thought  of  it  at  all,  it  would  be  painful 
aud  humiliating  indeed  to  think  how  mean  and  petty  is  our 
daily  life,  and  how  completely  occupied  with  microscopic 
trifling.  Those  of  us,  indeed,  who  affect  to  be  superior,  do 
occasionally  put  on,  and  flaunt  about  for  a  brief  hour  in,  some 
uniform  of  belief  or  of  principle — to  lay  it  off  again  when  the 
hour's  masking  is  over.  But  our  daily  thought  and  converse 
are  of  things  of  rank  detail.  The  Parson  applies  himself  to 
candlestick  and  vestment,  the  Prince  to  court  ceremony  and 
precedence,  the  Statesman  to  a  vote,  the  AVoman  to  the  fash- 
ions ;  and,  meantime,  the  law  of  God,  the  place  of  the  Sover- 


FLOTSAM   AND  JETSAM.  131 

eign,  the  fate  of  the  empire,  and  the  art  of  dress  are  left  unre- 
garded and  untouched.  We  are  always  working  in  our  little 
bits  of  colored  glass,  without  ever  thinking  of  verifying  the 
design  of  the  mosaic.  Thus  have  we  become  incapable  of  large 
principles  or  of  sustained  action.  And  withal  we  fancy  that 
we  have  handed  over  all  principles  to  the  charge  of  men  in- 
vented and  paid  for  that  purpose.  As  though  they,  who  are 
our  creatures,  could  be  any  different  from  us. 

****** 

There  is  an  old  lying  platitude  which  declares  that  the  idea, 
and  the  practical  are  two,  and  that  of  them  the  practical  is  the 
more  excellent.  Never  was  such  a  falsehood  presented  to  the 
foolhardiness  and  indolence  of  mankind.  Ideal  and  practical 
are  one,  and  the  practical  only  exists  because  and  in  so  far  as  it 
is  a  realization  of  the  ideal.  What  men  would  be,  that,  so 
far  as  in  them  lies,  they  are  ;  and  conversely  what  they  are, 
that  they  to  a  fuller  scope  would  be.  If  now  they  are  found 
striving  above  all  to  be  loved  and  honored  of  their  fellows,  and 
yet  to  take  no  heed  of  those  things  which  alone  merit  love 
and  honor,  then  their  ideal  is  that  of  supreme  deception,  the 
ideal  of  the  gambler  who  would  win  even  with  cogged  dice 
rather  than  not  win  at  all.  These  are  your  practical  men. 
Yet  it  were,  perhaps,  possible  to  conceive  of  another  kind  of 
man  who  should  stand  aside  and,  looking  at  the  game, 
should  reflect  that  he,  having  also  those  dice  put  into 
his  hand,  had  thrown  them  down  and  had  rejoiced  rather  to 
go  forth  a  loser  practically,  but  ideally  so  much  the  more  a 
gainer.  For,  make  up  the  accounts,  and  it  will  appear  at  last 
that  of  two  who  take  each  a  step  toward  their  point,  he  will 
remain  uppermost  whose  point  is  above — though  he  have  made 
infinitely  less  progress  than  he  whose  point  is  below. 
****** 

It  is  a  fearful  thing  to  be  out  of  gear  with  the  world,  and'Tie 
must  be  strongly  persuaded  he  is  right  who  can  endure  this. 
But  how  much  more  fearful  for  any  to  be  in  gear  with  it,  and 


132  FLOTSAM  AKD  JETSAM. 

yet  not  quite  sure  that  he  is  right !  In  the  one  case  there  is 
only  the  doubt  whether  he  is  a  martyr — in  the  other  there  is  the 
doubt  whether  he  is  not  a  swindler. 

The  meanness  of  this  our  generation  is  manifest  in  nothing 
more  than  in  the  craving  shown  to  be  many  together  to  indulge 
in  vice  or  corruption.  It  is  bad  enough  that  no  man  should  be 
any  longer  capable  of  virtue  without  companions  ;  but  it  is 
worse  that  none  should  be  capable  of  vice  without  abettors  ;  for 
this  involves  the  admission  that  the  vice  is  known  for  what  it 
is  ;  that  it  would  not  be  indulged  unless  there  were  too  many 
accomplices  concerned  to  be  punished.  A  man  hesitates  to  be 
a  liar,  a  traitor,  a  thief,  or  a  spoiler  purely  on  his  own  account, 
and  taking  all  his  own  risks  ;  but  he  will  readily  lie  as  the 
editor  of  a  newspaper,  betray  his  country  in  complicity  with  a 
party,  steal  money  as  the  financier  of  a  company,  or  remove 
his  neighbor's  landmark  in  the  ranks  of  an  aiTny.  Our  virtues 
are  miserable  enough,  but  there  is  something  incredibly  mean 
and  cowardly  about  our  vices.  Just  as  we  fancy  that  if  we  get 
a  few  hundred  fools  together,  the  result  will  be  a  body  of  wise 
men,  so  we  seem  to  think  that  when  we  follow  a  multitude  to 
do  evil,  the  evil  thereby  becomes  good.  This  is  the  theory  of 
the  divine  wisdom  of  majorities,  in  which  all  now  believe,  and 
by  which  we  are  governed. 

****** 

There  is  a  very  old  but  very  foolish  craze  still  in  existence, 
that  men  are  all  born  to  special  uses  ;  whereas  it  would  be 
much  more  true  to  say  that  they  are  mostly  educated  to  special 
misuses.  The  notion  is  popular  because  it  is  pleasant,  and  en- 
ables men  to  make  the  pretence  of  an  excuse  for  their  own  idle- 
ness by  representing  it  as  an  infliction  of  Providence.  They 
have  not  the  talent  necessary  to  do  this,  they  lack  the  special 
gifts  required  to  do  that,  they  will  tell  you,  and  give  you  to 
understand  that  they  are  hardly  used  in  that  respect.  One 
especial  instance  of  this  is  to  be  found  in  the  popular  notion  of 


FLOTSAM   AND  JETSAM.  133 

public  speaking  and  writing,  •which  are  freely  alleged,  and  by 
many  believed  to  be,  distinct  faculties  given  pr  withheld  from 
on  high  ;  and  there  are  found  orators  and  authors  who  support 
a  belief  which  so  magnifies  their  office.  The  simple  truth, 
nevertheless,  is  that  there  is  no  mystery  whatever  in  the  asser- 
tion of  conclusions,  either  vocally  or  on  paper  :  the  whole 
mystery  lies  in  attaining  to  conclusions,  which  is  by  no  means 
a  gift  reserved  to  a  few,  but  the  result  of  labor,  open  to  all  who 
will  pay  that  price  for  it.  The  whole  is  done  when  the  price 
is  paid  ;  neither  is  there  anything  else  at  all  worthy  of  being 
regarded.  If  you  would  see  the  real  prophet,  poet,  statesman, 
artist,  or  orator — that  is  to  say,  one  who  in  any  of  these  char- 
acters has  reached  any  conclusion — you  will  find  him  in  the 
solitary  man  struggling  and  wrestling  with  his  work,  failing, 
^  falling,  letting  the  oar  fall  from  his  grasp  and  coming  to  it 
again  painfully,  perhaps  reluctantly,  and  always  with  distrust 
of  his  strength,  the  while  there  is  none  by  to  cheer  and  encour- 
age him,  no  applause,  no  result  even  apparent,  nor  any  present 
hope  of  a  result.  What  he  then  can  do  in  the  silence  and 
darkness,  that  he  is  ;  and  he  is  but  a  pale  reflex  and  imitation 
of  that  when  he  stands  forth  only  to  show  his  work.  Yet  this, 
the  least  part  and  the  merest  incident  of  his  business,  is  alone 
regarded  and  treated  as  though  it  were  the  whole.  They  turn 
with  disgust  from  him  while  he  is  running  the  race  ;  and  when 
he  wins  the  prize  they  go  about  exclaiming  that  it  is  a  gift. 


CHAPTER  XXIX. 

Of  all  the  feelings  a  man  can  experience,  I  should  think  the 
bitterest,  the  most  humiliating,  and  the  nearest  of  any  to  des- 
peration, is  that  which  takes  him  by  the  throat  with  soft  grip- 
ping invisible  yet  resistless  fingers,  when  he  has  had  what  is 
called  a  success  in  that  particular  department  of  life  to  which 


134  FLOTSAM  AKD  JETSAM. 

be  has  for  the  moment  addressed  himself.  The  wealth  he  has 
labored  for  is  at  last  in  his  grasp,  and  all  the  pleasures  and  the 
powers  it  can  command  rise  up  to  salute  bun  ;  the  woman  be 
has  loved  at  last  owns  the  spell,  and  falls  into  his  arms  ;  the 
heaven-born  principle  be  has  discovered  and  revealed  is  at 
last  accepted,  and  the  universal  crowd  call  him  master  ;  the 
heathen  are  converted  at  last,  and  own  him  to  be  the  true 
prophet  :  he  has  fought  the  fight  and  conquered.  And  then, 
even  while  the  crown  is  being  placed  upon  bis  bead,  then  it  is 
that  be  must  fatally  look  in  upon  himself  and  know  that  he  is 
a  miserable  impostor.  Then  in  bitterness  of  soul  be  first  real- 
izes that  the  wealth  is  not  truly  bis  ;  that  he  is  not  indeed  the 
man  whom  that  woman  takes  him  to  be  and  loves  ;  that  the 
principle  he  has  preached  is  not  heaven-born  or  of  his  discov- 
ery ;  that  he  is  no  revealer,  no  prophet,  nothing  of  all  he  is 
taken  for,  and  no  true  possessor  of  the  rewards  attributed  to 
him.  If  a  successful  man  could  be  found  to  speak  the  truth 
at  such  a  moment,  he  would  say,  "  Madam,  or  gentlemen,  you 
are  all  fools  and  I  am  a  swindler. ' ' 

****** 
The  pangs  of  despised  love  are  so  universal  a  theme  with 
those  who  would  move  the  feelings  even  of  this  our  well- 
dressed  and  well-disciplined  generation,  that  I  am  tempted  to 
believe  most  men  and  women  have  that  skeleton  in  one  of  their 
closets.  I  have  indeed  known — we  all  have — many  instances 
of  it,  and  I  have  observed  that  the  despising  of  love  com- 
monly arises  from  the  fact  that  the  despised  one  has  sought  to 
mate  unequally.  We  are  all  so  unequal  in  every  way  when  we 
arrive  at  the  age  for  *'  falling  in  love,"  that  it  is  a  nice  and 
difficult  matter  to  find  two  persons  who  are  exactly  worth  each 
other  ;  and  this  present  difficulty  is  still  further  increased  by 
the  idea  of  what  each  feels  capable  of  working  out  in  the  fu- 
ture ;  besides  which  the  whole  is  infinitely  exaggerated  and  dis- 
torted by  vanity,  and  by  the  small  circle  of  opinion  which  each 
individual  regards  as  the  true  measure  of  all  things.  Thus, 
without  taking  into  consideration  differences  of  rank  and  for- 


FLOTSAM   AND  JETSAM.  135 

tune — which,  nevertheless,  are  to  be  considered — we  find  that 
when  each  reduces  his  or  her  moral,  intellectual,  and  physical 
qualities  to  a  common  denominator,  and  adds  them  together, 
the  sums  total  will  be  infinitely  various.  And  now  comes  the 
history  of  the  despised  one,  which  is  usually  this — that  A,  hav- 
ing made  the  calculation  for  self  and  B,  and  seeing  B  to  pos- 
sess the  superior  capital,  offers  to  go  into  partnership.  B  de- 
clines, and  A  remains  one  of  the  despised,  and  thenceforth 
fills  the  air  with  shrieks,  as  though  B  had  done  wrongfully  to 
decline  a  bad  bargain,  and  shamefully  to  look  at  it  so  far  as  to 
judge  of  its  goodness  or  badness. 

****** 

I  once  went  to  a  theatre  in  Madrid  to  see  a  new  piece  played 
by  actors  and  actresses  none  of  whom  I  knew  by  sight.  I  had 
a  playbill  with  the  names  of  the  actors  and  the  names  of  the 
characters  in  the  play  ;  but  I  found  it  absolutely  impossible  to 
match  any  one  of  the  parts  to  any  one  of  the  players,  the 
author  having  omitted  that  occasional  mention  of  names  which 
commonly  affords  the  clue  in  such  a  case.  So  that  to  this  day 
I  don't  know  which  character  was  the  virtuous  young  man, 
which  the  foolish  husband,  or  which  the  villain  and  arch- con- 
spirator, neither  have  I  any  idea  which  of  the  actors  severally 
played  the  parts. 

I  am  always  reminded  of  this  when  I  reflect  upon  that  per- 
petual comedy  of  politics  which  is  played  for  our  behoof.  We 
all  very  readily  see  in  it  some  virtue,  more  folly,  and  much 
yillany.  We  know  that  there  exist  such  people  (for  our  play- 
bill-newspaper tells  us  so)  as  Disraeli,  a  minister  of  state  ;  Lord 
Derby,  a  diplomat  ;  Gladstone,  a  banished  noble  (rival  of  Dis- 
raeli) ;  Gortschakoff  and  Bismarck,  friends  of  nuraanity  and 
champions  of  the  oppressed  ;  MacMahon,  a  soldier  of  fortune  ; 
Pius  IX.,  a  sovereign  pontiff  ;  besides  bravoes,  peasants,  con- 
spirators, and  crowds,  undistinguished.  But  which  is  which  is 
more  than  any  of  us  can  make  out.  That  man  on  the  stage  has 
just  robbed  the  church.  The  fact  is  clear,  for  we  have  seen  it. 
But  is  it  Bismarck  or  Pius   IX.  who  has  so  done  ?     Those 


136  FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM. 

others  have  hauled  down  a  glorious  banner  and  trampled  upon 
it.  Is  Gladstone  one  of  them,  or  is  it  Disraeli,  or  is  it  only 
the  "  Crowd"  ?  Here,  again,  is  a  plan  for  murdering  and 
plundering  an  unsuspecting  female.  Are  those  men  Gortschakoff 
and  Bismarck,  or  merely  two  "  conspirators"  ?  It  is  impossi- 
ble to  tell.  Unless,  indeed,  one  first  knew  the  real  off-the- 
stage  Disraeli,  Gladstone,  Gortschakoff,  and  Bismarck  :  then  it 
were  easy  to  recognize  them  even  through  their  paint  and  their 
comedy-dress.  Or  even  if  one  knew  but  one  only  of  them  one 
might  by  a  process  of  elimination  get  at  the  others  as  the  piece 
went  on.  But  we  do  not  and  cannot  know  ;  those  who  do 
know  will  not  tell  ;  and  as  each  act  of  the  comedy  closes  we 
lift  up  our  hands  in  astonishment,  and  let  them  fall  in  despair 
at  the  pitiful  things,  done  by  we  know  not  whom. 

****** 

I  believe  our  habit  of  interjectional  conversation — the  habit 
of  flinging  out  a  notion  haphazard  and  leaving  it  there  to  take 
its  chance — ^to  be  not  merely  the  effect  but  also  to  a  large  ex- 
tent the  cause  of  our  lamentable  laxity  of  thought.  The  cur- 
rent notion  of  conversation  is  satisfied  by  an  interchange  of 
short  sentences,  just  suflScient  to  carry  a  "  view"  or  an  "  opin- 
ion ;"  while  it  never  enters  anybody's  head  so  much  as  to  at- 
tempt an  exhaustive  statement  leading  to  a  reasonable  conclu- 
sion, on  any  point.  The  reason  of  which  is  that  scarcely  any 
will  take  the  trouble  to  collect  the  first  elements  required  for  a 
conclusion.  Those  who  have  taken  that  trouble  cannot  resolve 
the  work  into  half  a  dozen  words,  if  they  would  be  intelligible. 
Perhaps  a  day  will  come  when  we  shall  see  that  the  only  excuse 
a  man  can  have  for  saying  anything  is  that  he  is  able  to  say 
something — then,  perhaps,  we  shall  not  be  so  impatient  of  giv- 
ing him  the  time  to  say  it. 

****** 

Two  doctrines  always  amuse  me  :  that  in  order  to  be  rich  a 
man  must  save  money,  and  that  in  order  to  be  wise  he  must 
learn  much.     In  reality  the  reverse  is  the  truth.     The  measure 


FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM.  137 

of  a  man's  wealth  is  not  what  he  saves,  but  what  he  spends  ;  the 
rest,  which  is  merely  what  he  may  spend  some  day,  is  not  yet 
and  possibly  never  may  be  his.  So  also  the  measure  of  his 
wisdom  is  not  at  all  what  he  knows,  but  what  he  dares  outside 
his  knowledge.  That  which  he  has  learned  is  not  his  nor  any 
part  of  him,  but  only  that  which  he  conjectures,  supposes,  and 
believes  beyond  it.  The  essential  part  of  Columbus  was  not 
the  knowledge  he  got  from  Ptolemy,  Marco  Polo,  and  Sir  John 
Mandeville,  but  his  bold  belief  that  by  sailing  into  the  west  he 
should  discover  a  great  continent.  But,  then,  Columbus  is 
well  known  to  have  been  mad. 


CHAPTER   XXX. 

What  is  it,  then,  that  a  man  loves  (as  the  word  is)  in  a  wo- 
man ?  What  is  it  that  is  so  powerful  as  to  make  him  give  up 
all  his  approved  beliefs,  all  his  tried  methods  and  principles, 
and  deliver  himself  over  to  inconsequence  and  ridicule  on  a  hint 
from  that  woman  ?  Assuredly  it  is  not  beauty,  nor  wit,  nor 
wisdom,  still  less  goodness  or  virtue  of  any  kind  ;  for  she  may 
have  none  of  these  things,  and  be  none  the  less  powerful  with 
him.     What  is  it,  then,  that  the  man  loves  ? 

Speaking  diffidently,  and  as  one  who  only  knows  what  he  has 
been  told,  I  should  say  that  what  he  loves  is — himself.  It  is 
not  that  he  is  blind  to  the  defects  and  deformities  of  that 
woman,  still  less  that  he  believes  them  to  be  beauties,  and  has 
therefore  argued  himself  reasonably,  even  if  from  false  prem- 
ises, into  his  "  love"  for  her.  Not  at  all.  It  is  that  that 
particular  woman  has  found  or  chanced  upon  the  kind  of  flat- 
tery he  most  loves  ;  that  she  has  served  it  up  to  him  in  the 
most  insinuating  and  unsuspected  form  ;  and  that  he,  as  often 
as  not  unconsciously,  has  resolved  to  justify  her,  and  to  secure 
a  constant  repetition  of    that  delicious  testimony  to  himself 


138  FLOTSAM   AND  JETSAM. 

which  she  is  ready  to  afford.  By  a  word,  by  a  look,  by  a  ges- 
ture, she  has  in  the  first  instance  conveyed  to  him  that  she  has 
seen  and  acknowledged  that  particular  great  quality  of  his  ; 
this  she  has  subsequently  confirmed,  and  so  long  as  she  adheres 
to  it  the  man  is  her  slave.  Now,  women  will  readily  continue 
to  play  upon  that  responsive  chord,  even  after  they  have  found 
out  and  laughed  at  the  falsity  of  its  note.  For  they,  too,  in 
love  chiefly  love  themselves,  and  they  get  flattery  for  flattery. 
Yet,  if  one  of  them  should  tire  of  the  comedy  or  should  be- 
come aware  that  she  can  do  better  elsewhere  with  an  equally 
small  investment — and  if  at  the  same  time  the  man  fails  to  sup- 
ply himself  immediately  with  the  one  desire  of  his  soul — then 
he  breaks  out  into  bitter  lamentation  on  the  falsity  of  women. 
Sometimes  it  is  their  falsity  of  which  he  complains  ;  but  as 
often  as  not  it  is  of  their  return  to  truth,  and  the  cessation  of 
their  ministration  to  his  own  false  appetite. 


Palazzo  Blanc-Bec,  London,  Tuesday,  February  2. 

I  am  going  through  a  fearful  experience  and  yet  not  an  unin- 
teresting one,  for  if  one  always  finds  something  in  the  misfor- 
tunes of  ones  best  friends  that  is  not  displeasing,  one  finds 
the  same  in  one's  own. 

My  experience  is  that  I  am  trying  to  get  into  a  new  house, 
and  so  far  signally  failing.  I  had  been  months  about  it ;  I  had 
conceived  ideas  and  made  plans  for  its  fitting  up  and  furnishing 
which,  small  as  it  is,  were  to  make  it  the  one  only  bachelor's 
house  in  London.  I  had  made  drawings  in  and  out  of  per- 
spective of  all  the  novelties  ;  I  had  met,  and^s  I  thought  van- 
quished, the  difficulties  always  incident  to  the  new  thing  ;  I 
had  settled  that  I  would  have  no  gas,  no  coal,  and  no  paper 
in  the  house,  and  had  contrived  all  my  methods  of  lighting 
by  wax,  heating  by  wood,  and  hanging  with  stuffs.  I  had 
preached  all  this  as  a  new  religion  to  an  eminent  upholsterer — 
and  now,  when  I  come  back  from  foreign  parts  expecting  to 
find  all  ready,  I  discover  myself  to  be  in  the  most  desolate  and 


FLOTSAM   AND  JETSAM.  139 

melancholy  desert  ever  seen  since  the  time  of  Moses.  I  am 
sitting  in  the  midst  of  a  hopeless  mass  of  furniture,  which 
looks  as  if  a  shipwreck  had  just  taken  place  of  all  my  house- 
hold gods,  and  am  trying  to  smile.  Of  my  two  servants,  one 
(the  man  of  course)  has  deserted  me,  and  gone  I  know  not 
whither,  and  I  only  wonder  I  do  not  myself  think  it  impossible 
to  sleep  here  in  the  fairy  palace  I  had  contrived  for  myself.  I 
am  reminded  of  the  rich  man  in  the  ancient  writing  who  laid 
up  much  store  for  himself  only  to  learn  that  that  night  his 
soul  would  be  required  of  him. 

****** 

"Wednesday. 
My  male  servant  has  definitely  disinherited  me.  He  met 
Rosine  this  morning,  and  informed  her  that  his  self-respect  and 
regard  for  his  health  would  not  permit  him  to  sleep  in  a  recently 
painted  and  white-washed  room,  and  that  he  did  not  intend  to 
come  back.  Considering  that  he  was  lately  a  trooper  of 
Household  Cavalry,  and  therefore  presumably  a  soldier  not 
careful  of  small  discomforts,  I  receive  this  as  a  compliment  to 
my  own  gigantic  powers  of  endurance,  who  have  just  slept  in 
such  a  room.  Also  I  have  telegraphed  for  Ned  to  leave  the 
Billy  Baby,  and  to  come  up  and  take  me  under  his  protection. 
Him  I  know  I  can  rely  upon  at  any  rate,  and  if  I  had  but  Bill 
too  I  think  I  should  feel  quite  easy.  But  this  furniture  is  a 
great  cross  to  bear.  There  seems  enough  to  furnish  Bucking- 
ham Palace  in  the  middle  of  each  room.  All  the  fireplaces  are 
wrong,  being  in  that  stage  of  alteration  when  it  is  impossible  to 
burn  coals  in  them  any  longer,  and  not  yet  possible  to  bum 
wood.  We  can't  find  any  of  the  candlesticks,  a  damp  place 
has  declared  itself  in  the  dining-room,  all  the  chimneys  want 
sweeping,  and  none  of  the  locks,  cocks,  taps,  bolts,  or  bars  will 

work. 

****** 

Wednesday  Evening. 

Ned  has  arrived,  and  I  am  saved.     The  furniture  and  books 

are  all  more  hopeless  than  ever,  in  consequence  of  their  having 


140  FLOTSAM   AND  JETSAM. 

been  partially  arranged,  and  the  fireplaces  are  much  in  the 
same  state  ;  but  now  I  have  two  people  who  mean  business  and 
make  the  best  of  things.  I  have  taken  solemn  possession  of 
my  palace  by  dining  at  home.  It  has  been  a  matter  of  some 
contrivance.  Ned  went  out  and  bought  everything  as  the 
want  occurred.  Rosine  turned  out  a  perfect  little  repast,  which 
justifies  that  reputation  for  a  *'  bonne  cuisine  hourgeois^^  on 
•which  I  took  her,  and  I  am  once  more  happy  in  the  midst  of 
chaos.  As  for  Ned,  he  is  radiant  with  delight  at  being  up 
in  London  town,  and  active  and  ready  as  ever,  while  he  regards 
his  room  (the  room  which  the  household  trooper  rejected)  as 
a  dream  almost  too  magnificent  to  be  real. 

****** 

I  fancy  that  the  importance  given  to  such  material  surround- 
ings as  furniture,  books,  and  "  comforts"  generally,  is  a  pure 
invention  as  well  as  an  innovation.  Any  man  ought  to  be 
happy  with  a  table,  an  inkstand,  a  pen,  and  a  sheet  of  paper. 
It  is  not  the  things  but  the  people  about  him  that  affect  him  in 
any  important  way.  And  those  of  old  times  were  right  who 
made  it  their  object  to  have  retainers  rather  than  goods,  and 
thus  showed  that  they  preferred  troops  of  friends  to  heaps  of 

furniture. 

4c  *  *  *  *  * 

Rosine  says  that  Ned  is  a  marine  monster,  that  he  knows 
nothing,  and  can't  even  speak  in  pantomime,  and  that  she 
doesn't  know  what  to  do  with  him.     /  shall  go  to  bed. 


CHAPTER  XXXI. 

An  honest  plagiarist  is  the  most  effectual  work  of  God.  He 
it  is  who  having  had  the  top  rail  broken  by  the  original  thinker 
makes  the  gap  through  which  all  the  other  sheep  pass,  and  he 
is  entitled  to  all  the  real  credit  for  having  adopted,  assimilated, 


FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM.  141 

and  made  muscle  out  of  tlie  original  idea,  because  it  is  not  his 
own.  To  love  one's  own  children  is  an  easy  vijtue — being,  in- 
deed, only  a  kind  of  conceit  ;  but  to  adopt  the  children  of 
others  out  of  the  gutter,  and  to  set  them  on  thrones  till  the 
elders  blow  trumpets  before  them— this  is  not  so  easy,  and  is 
by  so  much  the  more  praiseworthy.  And  this  also  is  to  be  re- 
marked, that  it  is  the  plagiarist  and  not  the  original  man  who 
does  the  work  ;  it  is  not  John  the  Baptist,  who  was  right  from 
the  beginning,  but  Saul  who  first  distinguished  himself  by  ston- 
ing the  prophets.  For  the  plagiarist  also  adds  something  of 
his  own  to  the  original  idea — no  idea  can  pass  through  the 
human  mind  without  having  something  added — little,  per- 
haps, but  often  precisely  that  little  which  was  required  to 
stamp  the  original  gold  as  current  coin.  There  are  not  more 
than  half  a  dozen  original  ideas  conceived  in  a  generation  ;  and 
since  we  cannot  all  be  the  first  to  conceive  them,  it  were  best 
we  should  most  of  us  at  the  least  adopt  one,  and  provide  it 
with  food  and  raiment. 

*****  4fk 

There  is  only  one  science,  properly  to  be  so  called,  which 
is  that  of  relativity.  To  know  the  part  that  a  given  man, 
thing,  principle,  virtue,  or  vice  plays  in  the  world  is  to  know 
all  that  is  to  be  known  about  that.  And  it  is  precisely  what 
most  men  never  do  know.  To  hit  upon  the  relatively  impor- 
tant by  chance  is  talent  ;  to  choose  it  by  conscious  choice,  and 
to  reject  for  it  the  relatively  unimportant,  is  ability  ;  to  give 
to  the  important  its  due  place,  and  yet  to  retain  the  power  of 
treating  the  unimportant,  is  reserved  for  genius.  I  recognize 
genius  in  Napoleon  (I  mean,  of  course,  that  Napoleon  who  had 
the  honor  of  being  the  uncle  of  his  nephew)  when  I  find  him 
dealing  fully  with  the  subject  of  gaiters  and  harness. 
****** 

There  is  nothing,  perhaps,  which  so  clearly  indicates  and 
measures  the  great  decline  of  those  finer  and  higher  feelings 
which  men  of  race  are  supposed  to  possess  (and  which  they 


143  FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM. 

should  possess  if  they  are  not  impostors)  than  this  custom 
which  has  arisen  of  selling  a  noble  or  a  gentle  name  for  money. 
To  do  this  is,  besides  being  a  flagrant  breach  of  faith,  a  kind 
of  social  blasphemy,  and  a  distinct  act  of  social  prostitution. 
Here  is  one  who  has  inherited  a  great  name,  representing  great 
traditions,  and  carrying  with  it  equally  great  obligations.  It 
is  assumed  by  all  men  that  he  who  bears  that  name  cannot  lie, 
or  cheat,  or  descend  to  mean  things  ;  that  wherever  it  is 
found  it  is  a  tower  of  strength,  and  a  sure  guarantee  of  truth 
and  honesty.  Yet  there  is  sometimes — nay,  there  is  often — 
found  a  man,  who,  possessing  such  a  name,  makes  no  scruple 
of  selling  it  to  the  first  adventurer  who  will  bid  for  it  to  ticket 
his  wares  withal.  And  if  it  be  found  that  the  wares  are  false, 
the  gentleman  who  has  given  his  name  as  their  warranty  thinks 
it  enough  to  reply  that  he  did  not  know  it,  as  though  the 
name  itself  were  not  a  pledge  given  that  he  did  know.  A 
name  of  the  so-called  "  influential"  kind,  whether  made  or  in- 
herited by  its  possessor,  is  a  pledge  of  honesty  and  truth,  and 
of  the  knowledge  required  to  substantiate  truth  and  honesty, 
which  should  only  be  given  when  it  can  be  redeemed  ;  and  he 
who  gives  it  otherwise  is  the  worst  kind  of  social  swindler, 
far  worse  than  the  dealer  in  any  other  kind  of  base  coin. 
****** 
I  admire  the  foolhardy  way  in  which  men  fall  into  love,  as 
it  is  called.  It  is  like  the  letting  out  of  water.  They  begin 
with  a  mere  idea  of  amusing  themselves,  and  go  on  mostly 
with  the  same  notion — till  one  day  they  wake  up  and  find  that 
there  is  a  woman  who  can  add  ten  years  to  their  life  whenever 
she  chooses  ;  that  for  them  the  relative  importance  of  things 
has  been  fundamentally  changed,  and  that  there  is  a  certain 
little  creature  in  the  world  whose  moods  and  acts,  whose 
fancies  and  follies  have  suddenly  discovered  themselves  to  be 
of  greater  consequence  than  all  those  weighty  matters  hitherto 
known  to  be  such.  They  scarcely  admit  it  to  themselves, 
they  will  very  hardly  admit  it  to  anybody  else,  and  only  with 
reluctance,  perhaps,  to  the  little  creature  herself  ;  but  they 


FLOTSAM   AND  JETSAM.  143 

know  from  their  own  incomprehensible  acts  that  the  whole  of 
their  plan  is  thrown  out  of  perspective,  and  that  at  any 
moment  they  may  be  deprived  of  their  sleep,  their  digestion, 
and  all  their  earthly  happiness  through  a  mere  whim  of  a  fool- 
ish woman.  And  the  amusing  part  of  it  is  that,  when  this 
happens,  instead  of  taking  warning  from  it  never  to  fall  into 
that  trap  again,  they  have  but  one  object,  which  is  to  fasten  it 
once  more  securely  round  their  log.  It  is  lucky  for  us  we  are 
all  such  fools,  or  we  should  very  soon  get  tired  of  ourselves, 
which  at  present  is  not  a  common  failing. 


CHAPTER    XXXII. 

Truly  God  is  good.  And  those  who  would  know  it  have 
only  to  be  out  and  about  this  beautiful  country  of  ours  early 
one  of  these  winter  mornings.  I  think  there  is  nothing,  for 
those  who  will  but  look  at  it  and  take  it  in,  that  more  surely 
lifts  up  the  heart  in  thanksgiving.  Do  look  at  it  with  me. 
Those  warm,  russet,  velvety  expanses  of  plough,  so  soft  you 
could  bury  your  nose  in  them  as  a  child  does  in  his  mother's 
breast  ;  those  green  fields  lying  along  the  flanks  of  the  hills,  so 
delicately  powdered  with  hoar-frost  ;  those  rich  brown  hedge- 
rows and  trees,  echelonned  into  the  distance,  and  taking  from 
the  air  each  one  its  particular  "  value"  of  color  ;  that  white 
road  that  curves  over  the  shoulder  of  the  declivity,  and  carries 
away  with  it  the  slowest  imagination  ;  and  over  all  that  deli- 
cious soft  gray  sky,  unlit  by  the  sun,  yet  enriching  all  things 
with  tender  coloring  ;  do  not  they  all  turn  heavenward  their 
faces  with  an  unceasing  and  ever- varying  chorus  of  praise  ?  and 
can  you  and  I  refrain  from  joining  in  it  ?  Shall  we  not  rather 
the  more  readily  and  certainly  joinin  it  than  we  do  in  the  gar- 
ish summer,  now  that  we  see,  as  it  were,  the  mere  skeletons  of 
things,  and  behold  that  they  also  are  very  good  ?     And  shall 


144  FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM. 

we  not,  when  we  come  to  think  of  that,  be  ashamed  that  there 
are  times  when  we  pass  by  and  see  no  beauty  in  them  ? 
****** 

It  is  a  curious  notion,  that  which  all  people  seem  to  enter- 
tain, that  they  are  living  at  the  end  of  the  world.  It  is  often 
said  and  written,  in  form  direct  and  indirect,  that  we  owe  re- 
spect and  reverence  to  the  ages  that  have  preceded  us,  which 
are  presented  besides  as  affording  the  most  useful  examples  for 
our  good  guidance.  And  rightly  so.  But  do  we  not  also  owe 
much — nay  much  more — to  the  ages  that  are  to  follow  ?  Do 
we  not  at  least  owe  as  much  to  these  as  we  have  received 
from  those,  in  the  way  of  example,  and  is  not  our  responsibil- 
ity to  them  on  the  whole  much  greater  ?  From  antiquity  we 
receive  advantages,  to  posterity  we  owe  duties.  For  nothing 
that  we  do  is  without  its  effect  on  the  times  to  come.  All  our 
acts  are  imposed  upon  our  successors  with  a  resistless  force  ; 
he  who  plants  a  tree  endows  them  with  its  good  or  evil  fruit ; 
and  those  who  doubt  whether  that  fruit  must  necessarily  be 
eaten,  have  but  to  recall  the  numberless  times  and  ways  in 
which  they  have  been  brought  up,  all  standing,  by  a  wall  they 
have  found  ready  built,  and  which,  do  all  they  will,  they  can- 
not overturn.  True  in  physical,  this  is  even  more  true  in 
moral  concerns.  He  who  launches  a  false  idea  imposes  on 
men  to  come  a  false  belief  and  false  conduct  ;  and  yet  there 
are  many  who  will  launch  it,  knowing  it  to  be  false,  for  the 
mere  sake  of  what  they  wrongly  suppose  to  be  their  own  im- 
mediate gain,  and  still  more  who  will  launch  it  without  asking 
whether  it  be  true  or  false  On  such  the  curse  of  all  genera- 
tions must  fall. 

****** 

Most  men,  and  women  too,  fail,  I  believe,  to  come  into  the 
foremost  rank  among  their  fellows,  not  because  it  is  so  diflScult 
to  win  the  first  place  as  because  it  is  so  easy  to  win  a  second. 
Seeing  this  early  in  the  race,  as  all  must  see  it  who  are  in  the 
race  at  all,  they  run  for  the  second,  and  only  too  late  become 


FLOTSAM   AND  JETSAM.  145 

aware  that  tliey  too  were  capable  of  winning  the  first.  It  is 
so  inviting,  when  you  have  started  and  are  pulling  yourself 
together  for  a  desperate  struggle,  to  see  a  hand  held  out  to 
you  offering  a  crown  of  any  kind,  and  a  seat  of  honor  of  any 
dignity  ;  and  the  major  part,  looking  to  the  length  of  the 
course,  have  not  strength  to  resist  the  temptation,  and  so  throw 
away  their  chance.  Many  a  statesman,  who  might  have  won 
imperishable  glory  for  himself  and  his  country,  has  been  lured 
away  by  an  under-secretaryship  or  a  party  leadership  of  first 
or  second  order  ;  many  a  woman  who  might  have  been  a  pattern 
of  true  womanhood  has  been  tempted  by  a  "  position"  to  be- 
come one  of  the  common  pattern, 

****** 

Formerly  it  was  the  man  who  did  great  things  who  was 
honored,  now  it  is  the  man  who  talks  great  things  ;  as  though 
talk  were  of  any  possible  value  whatever,  except  in  so  far.  as  it 
indicates  or  provokes  to  action  ;  or  as  though  the  tree  should 
be  judged,  not  by  its  fruits,  but  by  the  noise  of  the  wind  that 
blows  through  it.  Yet  to  talk  well  is  held  to  be  a  great  gift 
in  itself,  and  men  are  chosen  for  no  other  reason  than  this  to 
be  the  rulers  of  states  and  the  arbiters  of  human  destinies. 
That  is,  indeed,  the  essence  of  what  is  called  parliamentary 
government — from  which  the  Lord  deliver  us  ! 

****** 

To  be  above  fortune  and  superior  to  care  is,  I  believe,  even 
still  admitted  to  be  the  ideal  state  to  which  man  should  tend. 
Nevertheless,  the  only  notion  now  current  of  reaching  it  is, 
that  a  man  should  increase  those  possessions  which  are  the 
most  exposed  to  fortune  and  the  most  fruitful  sources  of  care. 
To  gain  money,  respect,  troops  of  acquaintance  with  hat  in 
hand,  is  held  to  be  the  business  of  every  creature  ;  and  it  is 
forgotten  that  exactly  in  proportion  as  he  succeeds,  so  does  he 
increase  his  vulnerability  to  the  attacks  from  without.  The 
distinction  between  him  who  has  everything  and  him  who  has 
nothing  is,  that  the  former  is  everywhere  vulnerable  and  the 


146  FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM. 

latter  nowhere  ;  that  the  former  cannot  change  but  for  the 
worse,  and  the  latter  only  for  the  better.  Is  this,  therefore, 
to  say  that  we  are  to  seek  nothing  ?  By  no  means.  But  it  is 
to  say  that  we  are  to  seek  nothing  that  any  can  take  away  from 
us  ;  that  we  are  to  work  for  neither  money,  respect,  nor  any 
of  the  prizes  exposed,  but  only  for  the  true  secret  internal  tes- 
timony of  our  own  conscience  that  we  have  done  well  ;  the 
which,  as  none  can  give  it,  so  none  can  take  it  away.  This  is 
thoroughly  old,  and  therefore  entirely  new. 


CHAPTER  XXXIII. 

There  are  many  things  at  which  I  always  laugh  heartily 
within  myself,  and  at  which,  if  I  were  the  strong  man  armed, 
the  prophet,  or  the  martyr,  I  should  laugh  outright.  One  of 
these  is  the  notion  that  England  is  a  '*  free"  country,  when  in 
reality  we  all  well  know,  and  most  of  us  act  upon  the  knowl- 
edge, that  it  is  free  only  to  such  as  hang  upon  the  chariot 
wheels  of  the  powers- that  be.  It  is  free  to  anybody  to  do  or 
to  say  anything  that  is  already  generally  or  partially  admitted 
in  good  society  ;  it  is  free  to  him  to  say  that  Mr.  Disraeli  is 
wrong  or  right  in  his  policy,  that  Mr.  Whalley  is  a  lunatic.  Dr. 
Kenealy  an  obnoxious  creature,  and  Mr.  Mitchel  a  traitor  ;  but 
let  him  only  say  the  entirely  new  thing,  or  in  other  words  that 
which  has  not  yet  been  received,  and  he  will  be  stoned,  as  was 
Saint  Stephen,  and  as  all  pioneers  have  been.  There  is, 
indeed,  an  exception  to  this,  which  is,  that  any,  even  the  new 
thing,  may  be  said,  if  only  it  be  said  ineffectually,  in  such  a 
way  and  with  such  a  voice  that  it  cannot  get  into  men's  ears. 
In  short,  you  may  in  England  say  what  you  like  provided 
nobody  listens  to  you,  and  do  what  you  like  provided  nobody 
follows  you.     That  is  the  measure  of  English  freedom. 


FLOTSAM   AKD   JETSAM.  147 

Another  thing  that  amuses  me  is,  to  see  that,  in  spite  of 
Jeremy  Bentham  and,  other  barefaced  apostles  of  the  principle 
so  called  of  self-interest  ill-understood,  we  do,  all  of  us,  to  this 
day,  expect  and  look  to  all  men,  other  than  ourselves,  for  acts 
dictated  by  quite  other  and  opposite  motives.  We  do  expect 
our  judges  to  be  above  bribes,  the  safe  taking  of  which  is  abso- 
lutely dictated  by  self-interest  ;  we  do  expect  our  ministers  to 
be  patriotic  rather  than  partisan  ;  we  claim  that  even  the 
tradesman  shall  be  "  honest,"  that  is,  shall  be  faithful  to  his 
word  at  the  cost  of  profit.  We  claim  that  each  of  them  shall, 
and  we  often  go  so  far  as  to  assume  that  they  will,  act  upon 
this  sentiment,  this  breath,  this  notion,  that  there  is  something 
more  binding  upon  them  than  the  desire  to  win  as  much  as 
they  can  for  themselves  from  the  rest  of  mankind.  And  yet 
we  each  claim  for  ourselves  that  we  alone  may  act  quite  unsen- 
timentally  and  wholly  selfishly.  Is  this  not  truly  risible,  if 
there  were  left  in  us  any  sense  of  humor — which,  indeed,  is 
but  the  sense  of  congruity  ? 

****** 

It  is  strange  enough  that  as  soon  as  we  come  to  be  alone, 
we  always  admit  ourselves  to  be  much  smaller  people  than  such 
as  we  present  ourselves  to  the  world.  This  prince  or  that 
noble  or  statesman  produces  himself  to  the  universe  at  large  as 
though  he  were  the  inhabitant  of  splendid  saloons,  clothed  in 
purple  and  fine  linen,  and  faring  sumptuously  every  day.  But 
when  the  universe  at  large  is  not  there,  he  is  found  living  in  a 
back  parlor,  clad  in  a  second-hand  shooting-coat,  and  dining 
off  a  chop  cooked  by  the  kitchenmaid,  washed  down  by  a  pint 
of  his  third-class  claret.  Yet  if  there  be  anything  in  the  ap- 
purtenances with  which  he  furnishes  himself  for  presentation 
in  the  face  of  the  universe  it,  is  surprising  indeed  he  should 
himself  alone  abandon  the  enjoyment  of  them.  I  should  ex- 
pect to  see  him,  most  of  all  when  alone,  surrounded  by  those 
his  attributes,  if  indeed  they  are  his  attributes.  I  should  ex- 
pect to  find  him  living  in  the  best  drawing-room,  with  all  the 
lights  lit,  dining  with  his  score  of  lackeys  and  calling  on  his 


148  FLOTSAM   AND  JETSAM. 

cordon  bleu,  and  his  butler,  for  their  highest  efforts.  But 
then,  perhaps,  there  is  not  anything  in  them,  or  perhaps  they 
are  not  his  proper  attributes,  but  only  an  affectation  reserved 
for  the  outsider. 


**  Messieurs  de  la  Maison  du  Roi,  assurez  vos  chapeaux  ; 
nous  avons  I'honneur  de  charger." 

Such  was  the  formula  with  which  the  Household  Cavalry 
of  the  Grand  Monarch  were  hurled  into  battle  ;  and,  ridiculous 
as  it  may  seem  to  some,  it  indicated  that  the  troopers  thus  ad- 
dressed were  gentlemen,  fighting  for  what  they  called  honor, 
which,  whatever  it  may  have  been,  was  better  than  what  we 
call  "  pay  and  advantages,"  or  what  other  nations  call  con- 
scription. If  we  knew  it,  perhaps,  we  should  rather  envy  than 
affect  to  laugh  at  those  who  could  be  addressed  as  though  they 
were  taking  the  lives  of  their  fellows  for  something  to  them  in- 
telligible ;  for  it  is  more  than  can  be  said  of  any  soldiers  during 
these  last  hundred  years.  To  these  no  appeal  is  made — not 
even  to  their  prejudices — neither  is  any  reason  presented  to 
them.  It  is  said  by  some  leader  of  a  faction,  or  mere  chief  of 
a  conspiracy,  "  Thou  shalt  kill,"  and  straightway  each  of  them 
kills  and  holds  himself  innocent. 


CHAPTER  XXXIV. 

It  is  not  so  much  that  nothing  is  what  it  professes  to  be,  as 
that  everything  is  the  contrary  of  what  it  professes  to  be  ;  that 
paradox  is  received  for  truth,  and  truth  treated  as  paradox. 
Take  anything  you  please — say  wisdom  itself.  What  is  wis- 
dom ?  Nought  else  but  that  which  is  approved  as  such  by  the 
general  consent  of  mankind.  Else  it  may  be  that  madmen  are 
wise,  notwithstanding  that  mankind  shuts  them  up  and  puts 


FLOTSAM   AKD   JETSAM.  149 

strait-waistcoats  upon  them.  But  now  those  who  have  been 
thus  admitted  to  be  wise  have  united  in  declaring  tliat  mankind 
in  general  are  fools  ;  so  that  these  wise  ones  themselves  only 
hold  their  wisdom  by  the  suffrage  of  fools,  that  is,  by  a  title 
which  is  of  no  avail.  Whence  it  follows,  that  wisdom,  so 
called,  is  likely  to  be  folly  after  all — which  is  true. 

Or  take  "  progress,"  that  word  which  we  all  have  in  our 
mouth  as  representing  something  excellent.  What  is  it  ? 
What  else  than  change,  which  is  death  as  well  as  life  ?  So  far 
as  I  can  make  out,  it  means  coal,  gas,  railways,  machinery, 
electric  telegraphs,  parliamentary  government,  universality  of 
taxation,  centralization — or,  as  it  is  called,  unity  of  govern- 
ment. Well  and  good,  if  these  were  improvements,  as  is  as- 
sumed ;  but  are  they  not  exactly  the  reverse  ?  And  are  not 
those  of  us  who  think  found  coming  back,  whenever  they  can, 
and  as  a  mere  matter  of  profit,  to  the  practice  of  the  times 
before  progress  was  ?  Has  it  not  by  these  been  imagined  that 
it  is  better  to  burn  wood  than  coal  ;  to  use  oil  than  gas  ;  to 
ride  than  to  steam  ;  to  have  the  diverse  and  always  human 
fruits  of  manual  labor  rather  than  the  always  similar  and  in- 
human results  of  the  machine  ;  to  wait  for  handwriting,  or 
even  for  speech,  rather  than  be  content  with  the  telegram  ;  to 
have  governors  amenable  to  the  State,  rather  than  factionists 
responsible  to  a  party  ;  to  have  the  rich  pay  the  taxes  out  of 
that  they  have,  rather  than  the  poor  out  of  that  they  have  not ; 
to  multiply  centres  of  power,  rather  than  to  diminish  and  unite 
them  ?  And  if  all  this  be  true,  is  not  progress  rather  a  curse 
than  a  blessing  ?  As  for  me,  I  never  see  a  gas-chandelier  (so 
called),  travel  on  a  railway,  recognize  the  product  of  a  machine, 
receive  a  telegram,  read  the  words  of  a  parliamentarian,  pay  a 
tax,  or  submit  to  a  'hard  and  fast  general  statute,  but  I  feel  in- 
clined to  abuse  the  *'  progress"  which  has  given  us  all  these 

blessings. 

****** 

It  has  been  said  that  the  object  of  a  man's  life  should  be  to 
do  all  things  well  and  one  thing  better  than  any  other  man. 


150  FLOTSAM    AND   JETSAM. 

Yet  that  seems  to  present  the  most  lamentable  and  most  humil- 
iating notion  possible  of  the  ideal  man.  It  amounts  to  this, 
that  he  is  to  exist  for  the  gallery  ;  that  he  is  to  do  all  things  so 
as  to  avoid  their  contempt,  and  one  thing  so  as  to  excite  their 
admiration.  Whereas  it  seems  to  me,  that  whenever  and  so 
soon  as  a  man  at  all  regards  the  gallery  he  is  lost,  and  has  ut- 
terly renounced  all  his  chance  of  separate  existence,  which  is  to 
say  all  his  chances  of  any  existence  whatever.  He  himself,  and 
not  any  other  body,  is  his  own  judge,  and  unless  he  can  bring 
himself  before  his  own  tribunal  and  establish  that  by  its  laws 
he  has  done  all  things  well — nay,  and  all  things  better  than 
anybody  else — he  is  a  failure  and  a  mere  imitation  man.  No 
doubt  we  all  know  that  that  is  precisely  what  we  are  ;  but  that 
does  not  go  to  say  that  that  is  what  we  should  all  seek  to  be. 
God  forbid  ! 

*****  4ft 

There  are  many  who  in  these  days  believe,  not  only  that  the 
greater  number  of  Englishmen  are  thieves,  but  that  thieving 
is  excusable,  if  not  defensible,  whenever  a  fair  opportunity  is 
given  for  it.  The  doctrine,  indeed,  is  not  put  into  that  form 
— but  into  this,  which,  however,  amounts  to  exactly  the  same 
thing  :  that  it  is  criminal  to  expose  people  to  the  "  tempta- 
tion" to  thieve,  or  in  other  words  to  aflEord  them  the  opportu- 
nity ;  and  even  scarcely  less  criminal  not  to  make  thieving  im- 
possible. All  which  amounts  to  this  ;  that  the  desire  to  steal 
is  a  natural  and  fair  operation  of  natural  instincts  ;  whence,  if 
it  be  so,  this  follows  also  :  that  the  desire  to  conserve  "  prop- 
erty" is  an  Mwnatural  instinct.  And  this  indeed  is  so  far 
believed  that  the  Deputy  Chairman  of  the  Surrey  Sessions  has 
"  concurred"  in  the  "  denunciation  of  the  practice  of  tempting 
the  poor  by  the  exposure  of  articles,"  and  declared  it  to  be  "  a 
great  temptation  to  expose  goods  in  the  manner  constantly 
done."  It  may  as  well  be  said. that  it  is  a  great  temptation  to 
a  deputy  chairman  to  talk  arrant  nonsense.  Either  the  princi- 
ple of  property  is  respectable  and  ought  to  be  respected,  or  it 
is  damnable  and  a  robbery,  as  Proudhon  declared  it.     In  the 


FLOTSAM    AND   JETSAM.  151 

former  case  exposure  of  it  to  attack  furnishes  no  excuse  for  its 
violation  ;  in  the  latter  the  most  complete  material  defence  of 
it  can  furnish  no  argument  for  its  maintenance. 


CHAPTER    XXXV. 

Sitting  in  the  stalls  of  a  theatre  the  other  night  I  observed 
a  ladj'  next  me  lean  forward  and  examine  a  shawl-cloak  belong- 
ing to  the  lady  in  front  of  her.  Having  glanced  at  it  an  in- 
stant she  leaned  back  again,  and  turning  to  her  companion,  said, 
with  that  look  of  scorn  and  disgust  which  the  female  face  alone 
can  construct,  "  Paisley  !"  whereat  they  both  smiled  contempt- 
uously. 

Why,  then,  was  this  shawl  less  admirable  for  being  Paisley 
than  it  would  have  been  had  it  been  a  true  Kashmir  ?  Mainly 
because  the  one  is  machine  and  the  other  man-made.  The 
results  of  the  two  methods  of  making  are  indeed  very  differ- 
ent, for  the  Paisley — spite  of  the  "  progress"  it  represents — 
can  never  give  the  same  rich  yet  soft  blending  of  colors,  or  the 
same  interesting  accidents  of  design.  Yet  to  those  who  look  to 
regularity  in  design  and  execution  (as  though  that  were  of  any 
value  apart  from  proportion)  the  Paisley  product  should  ap- 
pear the  preferable.  It  does  not,  however,  so  appear,  even  to 
these  ;  and  the  only  reason,  if  you  come  to  look  into  it  and  to 
find  it,  is,  that  the  Paisley  shawl  brings  you  only  mediately 
into  contact  with  the  human  being  who  made  it,  while  the 
Kashmir  brings  you  into  the  contact  immediately.  Turn  it  up 
and  you  will  see  where  the  cunning  needle  has  crossed  and  re- 
crossed  those  delicate  silken  fibres  ;  you  seem  to  assist  at  the 
long,  unwearied,  loving  labor  that  has  been  spent  over  it,  to 
follow  the  dusky  travailer  through  the  intricacies  of  the  design, 
and  to  sympathize  even  with  those  little  failings  to  follow  it  out 
which  here  and  there  you  trace.     The  Paisley  machine  makes 


152  FLOTSAM   AND  JETSAM. 

you  a  hundred  thousand  shawls  of  the  same  pattern,  and  all 
alike  ;  the  Kashmir  embroiderer  may  make  ten,  and  all  unlike, 
yet  more  like  the  original  than  the  Paisley  for  having  kept  the 
intention,  if  they  have  lost  part  of  the  form.  Who  would,  or 
who,  however  "  progressive,"  could,  value  the  hundred  thou- 
sandth part  of  the  life  of  a  machine  as  he  would  the  tenth  part 
of  the  life  of  a  man  ? 

****** 

I  remember  one  who  said  that  he  loved  men  too  well  to  care 
for  dogs.  No  doubt  this  was  a  lunatic,  for  I  always  meet  a  score 
of  persons  who  care  much  for  one  dog,  to  one  who  cares  any- 
thing for  the  whole  of  mankind.  The  tyranny  of  the  dog,  in  fact, 
is  fearful.  The  whole  of  one's  life  has  to  be  regulated  by  its 
requirements.  I  have  one  consumed  by  two  delusions  :  that  a 
looking-glass  can  be  drunk  like  water,  because  she  can  see  her- 
self in  it  as  she  can  in  water,  and  that  vehicles  of  all  kinds  are 
capable  of  being  immediately  stopped  by  running  after  and 
barking  at  their  hind-wheels.  And  whereas  I  believe  that  I 
take  her  out  in  order  to  run  after  me,  she  believes  that  I  take 
her  out  in  order  to  run  after  her.  Nevertheless,  as  she  is  the 
only  one  of  her  sex  I  have  ever  been  able  to  get  to  live  with 
me  on  any  terms,  and  as  she  humors  my  weaknesses,  I  am  de- 
voted to  her,  and  do  run  when  she  insists  upon  it.  I  believe 
the  real  reason  why  one  prefers  dogs  to  human  beings  is  that 
they  have  little  sense  of,  and  no  memory  for,  injustice. 
****** 

It  was  one  of  the  ten  wishes  of  Henry  IV.  of  France  to  re- 
duce all  the  religions  of  Europe  to  three  only,  the  result  of 
which  he  believed  would  be  that  Europeans  would  be  less 
divided.  In  this  I  believe  him  to  have  been  thoroughly  wrong, 
as,  indeed,  every  man  must  be  who  would  rearrange  the  world 
on  notions  derived  from  an  earnest  contemplation  of  his  own 
interests.  The  form  of  religion  is  somewhat  a  matter  of  cli- 
mate and  temperament,  and  no  form  of  it  can  gain  a  perma- 
nent hold  that  is  not  suitable  to  the  locality  and  the   people  to 


FLOTSAM   AifD   JETSAM.  153 

whom  it  is  presented.  The  desirable  thing,  therefore,  is,  not 
that  forms  of  religion  should  be  diminished,  but  that  they 
should  be  increased  in  number  and  variety  ;  until,  if  it  be  pos- 
sible, every  tongue  and  every  nation  may  possess  a  sufficient 
number  to  cover  the  belief- capability  of  every  individual  in 
it.  For  what  is  essential  is,  that  every  man  should  thoroughly 
possess  those  beliefs  that  are  called  religious.  And  this,  be  it 
observed,  does  not  touch  true  religion  itself,  of  which  the  basis 
is  always  the  same  in  whatever  form  or  through  whatever  dog- 
mas it  is  conveyed.  It  would  be  well  if  men  were  not  driven 
to  the  last  desperate  resort  of  irreligion  by  finding  no  form  of 
religion  which  they  can  receive — which  will  never  be,  until  the 
professors  recognize  that  foi*m  is  of  no  moment.  But  then  the 
professors  live  by  the  form. 

****** 
I  saw  a  man  to-day  pass  by  a  beggar  with  a  contemptuous 
pitiless  glance  ;  and  I  said  to  myself  that,  considering  how 
many  hard  men  and  armor-cased  with  political  economy  there 
are  in  the  world,  the  beggar's  trade  must  be  a  poor  one. 
When  the  hard  man  had  gone  a  little  way,  he  stopped,  frown- 
ed, put  his  hand  in  his  pocket,  and  drawing  thence  a  sixpence 
went  back  and  gave  it  to  the  beggar — upon  which  I  saw  that  I 
was  a  fool.  The  thought  of  the  hard  man  had  clearly  gone 
through  several  stages  :  first  disgust,  then  toleration,  then 
pity,  and,  finally,  fellow-feeling  must  have  moved  him,  all  in 
half  a  dozen  paces  ;  or  perhaps  it  were  more  correct  to  say 
that  he  had  felt  none  of  these  truly,  and  maybe  least  of  all  that 
on  which  he  finally  acted  ;  for  if  he  had,  he  could  not  thus 
have  successively  abandoned  each  one  for  another,  or  so  quickly 
have  faced  clean  about.  But  it  is  enough  to  show  that  the 
final  acts  of  men  like  him — which  make  up  the  history  of  the 
world — are  not  to  be  guessed  at  or  predicted  from  aught  they 
may  profess,  however  honestly,  at  a  given  moment.  What  they 
say,  they  say  not  from  any  conviction,  but  out  of  a  desire  to  say 
something,  which  is  usually  premature.  And  if  you,  being  a 
fool,  a  fanatic,  or  a  rogue,  only  go  on  hammering  away  at  the 


154  FLOTSAM    AND   JETSAM. 

same  appeal,  ana  remain  accessible,  as  likely  as  not  they  will 
come  back  to  you  and  give  you  that  you  ask. 

t  *  *  *  *  * 

Reading  an  old  black-letter  chronicle,  printed  in  1580,  I  find 
that  in  1523  a  Parliament  assembled  at  the  "  Blacke  Friers" 
on  the  15th  of  April,  and  that  "  after  long  debating  the  Com- 
mons granted  two  shillings  of  the  pound  of  every  man's  goodes 
and  lands  that  were  worth  twentie  pound,  or  might  dispend 
twentie  pound  by  yeare,  and  so  upward,  and  from  forty  shil- 
lings to  twentie  pound  twelve  pence  of  the  pound,  and  imder 
forty  shillings  of  every  head  sixteene  years  and  upward,  four 
pence  to  be  paid  in  two  years."  Now,  as  it  appears  from  the 
same  record  that  beef  was  then  a  halfpenny  per  pound  and 
mutton  three  farthings,  we  may  assume  that  money  represented 
something  like  thirty  times  what  it  does  now.  The  state  of 
the  matter,  therefore,  was  this  :  that  those  who  had  an  income 
of  £600  or  upward  paid  an  income-tax  of  ten  per  cent,  while 
they  who  had  an  income  of  £60  or  upward  paid  but  five  per 
cent,  and  those  who  had  less  than  this  paid  but  ten  shillings 
each,  spread  over  two  years.  Yet  if  it  were  now  proposed  that 
the  rich  man  should  be  taxed  in  double  proportion  to  the 
moderately  well-to-do  and  ten  times  as  heavily  as  the  poor,  it 
would  be  said  to  be  a  thing  unwarranted  by  any  example  in  the 
world.  Nevertheless  all  the  subsidies  that  were  of  old  granted 
to  English  monarchs  were  calculated  in  this  same  way,  so  as  to 
levy  a  progressively  higher  percentage  on  the  richer  tax-pay- 
ers. And  in  those  times,  too,  the  poor  had  their  own  prop- 
erty in  the  shape  of  Church  lands,  one  third  of  the  revenue 
of  which  was  theirs  by  law  ;  and  also  in  the  shape  of  six  mill- 
ions of  acres  of  common  land.  Anybody,  therefore,  may  see 
how  great  a  cause  the  poorer  sort  have  to  bless  the  Reforma- 
tion, which  deprived  them  of  the  monasteries  ;  the  first  Revo- 
lution, which  endowed  them  with  equal  taxation  ;  and  the 
second  Revolution,  which  provided  them  with  a  standing  army 
and  a  national  debt. 


Flotsam  akd  jetsam.  165 


CHAPTER  XXXVI. 

"  By  Jove,  I  am  not  covetous  of  gold,  but  if  it  be  a  sin  to 
covet  honor,  I  am  the  most  oflEending  soul  alive."  So  said 
Hotspur,  and  it  is  a  saying  that  might  send  a  thrill  of  enthu- 
siasm through  the  soul  of  a  miser — if  there  be  such  a  creature 
not  in  lunacy,  which  I  doubt.  It  seems,  indeed,  so  splendid, 
so  godlike,  to  have  none  of  the  vulgar  covetousness,  but  that 
other  only  which  has  always  been  held  noble.  Yet  if  they  be 
looked  at,  there  is  little  indeed  to  choose  between  them  in  their 
demerits.  To  covet  honor  is  to  covet  not  even  the  good  opin- 
ion of  men — which,  God  knows,  is  worth  little  enough — but 
only  their  good  words,  which  do  not  always  represent  a  good 
opinion,  and  are  therefore  worthless.  It  once  meant  to  be 
quick  in  quarrel,  to  ride  foremost  in  the  fray,  to  protect  ladies, 
and  to  be  cited  for  these  things  between  men  for  an  ensample  ; 
in  these  latter  days  it  simply  means  to  have  your  name  often  in 
the  newspapers.  This  is  not  very  hard  to  achieve  for  a  man 
who  will  take  the  trouble  ;  moreover,  when  once  the  news- 
papers do  begin  there  is  no  stopping  them,  and  the  name  will 
go  to  the  furthest  ends  of  the  globe  six  days  a  week  regularly. 
But  the  facility  with  which  this  ' '  honor' '  is  gained,  and  the 
wideness  of  its  reach,  is  more  than  equalled  by  its  evanes- 
cence. There  are  those  whose  names  filled  columns  of  the 
journals  ten  years  ago,  and  whom  now  nobody  remembers  or 
could  remember.  His  is  a  very  strong  "  honor"  indeed  that 
will  live  a  generation.  The  names  of  the  honorable  men  to  be 
found,  for  instance,  in  the  "  Greville  Memoirs"  that  are  not 
absolutely  new  to  this  generation,  may  be  counted  on  the 
fingers.  Is  it  likely  that  their  present  successors  will  fare 
better  ?  "Will  anybody  know  fifty  years  hence  who  John 
Bright  was,  or  Vernon  Harcourt,  or  the  fifteenth  Earl  of 
Derby  ?  Will  anybody  at  that  distance  of  time  be  ready  to 
believe  off-hand  that  Sir  Stafford  Northcote,  Mr.  Ward  Hunt, 
Lord  Hartington,   and  the  Earl  of  Ripon  ever  swayed  their 


156  FLOTSAM   AND  JBTSAJt. 

country's  destinies  ?  Judging  from  past  experience,  it  seems 
highly  improbable.  So  that,  in  spite  of  all  teaching,  they 
may  yet  be  found  wise  who  contemn  glory,  and  prize  above  it 
that  inner  consciousness  of  having  done  their  whole  duty, 
which,  while  it  never  yet  brought  present  honor,  always  brings 
present  satisfaction. 

****** 

He  who  would  really  do  a  work  in  this  world  must  find  a  man 
and  a  woman.  And  these  must  belong  to  him,  as  he  belongs  to 
himself,  and  be  felt  to  be  as  trustworthy  (at  least)  as  himself 
through  fair  weather  or  foul.  The  woman  is  of  first  necessity 
in  order  to  dispose  and  get  rid  of  women.  Then,  being  free  to 
put  himself  into  his  work,  he  must  find  the  man  who  is  fit  to 
be  his  ally.  Being  alone,'  he  is  a  visionary  or  a  lunatic,  but 
having  gained  his  one  man  he  has  gained  in  him  the  whole  of 
mankind.  For  it  is  thenceforth  but  a  repetition  of  the  same 
process  that  is  required,  and  against  two  men  standing  wholly 
together  nothing  can  avail.  I  speak  only  of  such  a  one  as  has 
found  something  to  do  and  means  to  do  it.  He  who  merely 
means  to  pass  the  time  need  possess  neither  man  nor  woman — 
not  even  himself. 

****** 

The  misfortune  of  the  truly  great  is  that  they  are  great ; 
that  is  to  say,  that  they  have  no  appeal  from  themselves,  and 
must  therefore  rely  upon  themselves  alone.  Just  as  a  colonial 
governor  can  never  dine  out  in  his  colony,  so  they  can  never 
submit  themselves  to  judgment.  For  who  is  to  judge  the  wise 
man  of  his  wisdom  ?  Not  the  fools  ;  for  that  were  absurd. 
But  between  two  wise  men,  who  in  their  wisdom  disagree,  who 
is  to  judge  ?  Again,  not  the  fools  ;  for  that  were  still  more 
absurd,  since  the  point  of  disagreement  is  too  knotty  even  for 
the  wise  to  decide.  Who  then  ?  None  but  the  wise  them- 
selves. But  this  is  despotism.  It  is.  If  you  object  to  it,  let 
us  suppose  that  the  fools  shall  judge.  That  is  democracy. 
Then  comes  the  question  who  are  the  wise  ?     To  which  you  re- 


FLOTSAM   AKD  JETSAM.  157 

ply  that  the  fools  are  the    best  judges,  at  any  rate  of  that. 
Whereupon  I  thank  you  and  go  my  ways. 

****** 

It  is  not  that  the  woman  you  love  is  different  from  all  other 
women,  but  that  all  other  women  are  different  from  her.  Pos- 
sibly they  are  better — that  is  nothing  to  the  point,  any  more 
than  it  is  that  Velasquez  could  show  you  a  better  portrait  than 
you  will  ever  see  in  a  mirror.  For  she  shows  you  that  you 
have  already  in  your  inner  self  as  the  portrait  in  which  you  de- 
light, and  all  that  does  not  answer  to  it  is  to  you  as  though  it 
did  not  exist.  It  may  all  be  admirable  ;  yet  not  only  can  you 
by  no  means  grasp  the  admiration  of  it,  but  you  can  only  feel 
a  generous  toleration  for  those  who,  being  ignorant  of  what 
you  know,  put  those  admirable  qualities  above  those  others 
with  which  you  alone  are  acquainted.  For  it  is  the  distinctive 
mark  and  proof  that  you  love  this  woman,  when  you  are  con- 
vinced beyond  all  possibility  of  demonstration  that  you  know 
her  as  none  else  does. 

****** 

It  is  startling  enough  to  remember  that  men  can  never  appre- 
ciate anything  in  its  own  original  self,  that  they  will  not  even 
regard  it  until  it  has  been  translated  to  them,  and  that  then  all 
their  admiration  is  reserved  for  the  translation  itself  without  its 
bringing  them  one  whit  nearer  to  an  appreciation  of  the  origi- 
nal. The  thing,  the  man,  the  truth  is  nothing  ;  the  comment 
and  the  commentator  are  everything.  This  beautiful  world  of 
ours  would  be  unknown  save  for  the  poet  ;  the  very  human 
form  would  never  have  been  regarded  save  for  the  artist ;  the 
axiom  does  not  exist  till  it  is  aflBrmed  by  the  philosopher  ; 
the  notion  is  not  with  us  till  it  is  revealed  by  the  prophet ;  and 
once  they  have  hardly  done  their  copying  work,  we  all  fall  to 
worshipping  the  copy  and  think  no  more  of  the  original  than 
we  did  before.  Doubtless  the  poet,  the  artist,  the  philosopher, 
and  the  prophet  are  only  recognized  as  such  in  so  far  as  they 
appeal  successfully  to  that  sense  of  what  they  preach  which  has 


158  FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM. 

hitherto  lain  dormant  and  dull  within  us.  Doubtless  we  only 
see  the  infinite  beauty  of  that  blade  of  grass  when  it  is  point- 
ed out,  because  we  had  previously  the  power  of  seeing  it  with- 
out its  being  pointed  out  had  we  set  to  work.  But  it  is  pre- 
cisely because  he  who  shows  it  to  us  has  done  for  us  the  work 
which  we  then  know  we  ought  to  have  done  for  Ourselves,  that 
we  are  grateful  to  him.  So  that  it  is  not  because  the  poet  has 
brought  us  to  see  the  poetry  of  the  thing  that  we  value  him, 
but  rather  because  he  has  rendered  it  unnecessary  for  us  to  seek 
its  poetry  in  it,  he  having  done  this,  as  we  think,  for  us,  and 
done  it  suflSciently.  Wherefore  we  look  rather  less  to  the 
thing  than  before,  and  are  content  with  the  poem  which  is,  as 
we  hold,  its  full  translation.  That  is  why  we  affect  to  love  poe- 
try and  yet  despise  the  world  ;  why  we  rejoice  in  art  and  yet 
are  shocked  at  the  human  form  ;  why  we  honor  tbe  prophet 
and  blaspheme  the  idea  ;  why  we  crown  the  philosopher  and 
deny  the  truth.  Otherwise  each  of  us  must  seek  to  be  poet, 
artist,  philosopher,  and  prophet  to  himself — whicb  would  in- 
volve using  the  talents  tliat  God  has  given  us — whicli  is  not  to 
be  thought  of. 


CHAPTER  XXXVII. 

Railways  and  newspapers  are  to  me  the  chief  horrors  of 
what  is  called  (and  God  knows  why)  a  "  state  of  civilization." 
It  is  not  so  much  the  railway  or  the  newspaper,  but  the  abso- 
lute and  unavoidable  necessity  of  travelling  by  the  one  and  of 
reading  the  other  that  is  so  terrible.  It  is  not  that  they  ill  fulfil 
their  purpose,  but  that  they  have  eaten  up  and  destroyed  all 
other  methods  of  fulfilling  it,  and  that  they  are  the  only  means 
now  extant  of  movement  and  information.  The  hardship  of  it 
is  that  there  is  no  choice — that  you  cannot  travel  except  by 
rail,  or  learn  anything  of  what  is  being  done  in  the  world  ex- 
cept from  newspapers.     Posting,  riding,  and  even  walking  are 


FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM.  159 

extinct,  except  as  feeders  of  the  "  lines  ;"  writing  and  conver- 
sation no  longer  have  any  existence,  save  as  the  preliminary 
stages  of  publication.  And  here  comes  the  Nemesis,  which 
is,  that  both  railways  and  newspapers,  having  first  destroyed 
all  their  rivals,  have  now  at  last  destroyed  the  very  objects  of 
their  own  existence.  They  have  made  a  complete  end  of 
travelling  and  of  information,  and  have  substituted  for  the 
former  the  transport  of  men  as  goods  are  transported,  and  for 
the  latter  rumor  and  the  conflict  of  many  lies.  Sterne,  when 
he  made  his  sentimental  journey  to  Paris,  travelled  ;  the  tinle 
he  spent  on  the  voyage  was  delightfully  employed  and  thor- 
oughly filled,  and  something  was  added  by  it  to  his  life  ;  but 
a  journey  to  Paris  now  merely  represents  so  much  time  abso- 
lutely subtracted  from  life.  We  do  it,  indeed,  in  ten  hours 
instead  of  five  days,  but  that  only  means  that  we  lose  ten  hours 
instead  of  gaining  five  days,  which  is  a  bad  bargain.  And 
so  also  with  newspapers.  There  is  more  reading  accessi- 
ble, but  less  real  information.  Those  who  know,  know  that 
there  is  rarely  a  line  in  any  newspaper  that  can  safely  be  read 
merely  as  it  is  .printed,  so  that  the  constant  reader  only  attains 
to  great  confusion,  and  not  to  greater  knowledge.  AH  which 
is  *  *  progress. ' ' 

****** 
When  Bacon  published  his  "  Organon,"  a  smart  man  said 
of  it  that  "  it  was  a  book  which  a  fool  could  not  and  a  wise 
man  would  not  have  written."  There  was,  perhaps,  more 
truth  in  the  saying  than  would  now  be  believed.  I  begin  to 
think  that  Bacon  is  the  real  father  of  most  of  our  troubles  ;  for 
indeed  it  was  he  who  first  invented  and  erected  into  a  religion 
that  "  inductive"  method  of  dealing  with  natural  science  which 
consists  in  fitting  the  theory  to  the  facts.  The  result  is  that 
every  theory  appears  to  be  and  is  accepted  as  being  absolutely 
true,  so  long  as  all  the  known  facts  can  be  brought  within  it  ; 
and  that  every  man  may  have  his  own  perfect  theory  according 
to  his  own  knowledge  or  ignorance.  Such  a  one  has  seen  that 
the  sun  rises  in  the  east  and  sets  in  the  west  ;  for  him,  there- 


160  FLOTSAM   AKD  JETSAM. 

fore,  the  theory  is  perfect  that  the  sun  moves  round  the  earth. 
But  such  another  one  has  learned  another  fact,  and  for  him  the 
theory  is  that  the  earth  moves  round  the  sun.  Each  will  be 
and  each,  according  to  the  Baconic  method,  is  justified  in  being 
fully  satisfied  with  this  theory  until  he  has  acquired  a  new  fact 
to  disturb  it,  and  to  render  a  fresh  one  necessary.  In  truth, 
upon  this  plan  no  one  could  be  certain  that  his  theory  is  per- 
fect, or,  in  other  words,  that  his  belief  is  true,  unless  he  is  pre- 
viously certain  that  his  knowledge  is  perfect ;  but  the  essence 
of  the  system  is  that  each  is  certain  till  the  new  fact  proves 
him  wrong.  So  that  the  result  of  this  inductive  method  is  to 
endow  ignorance  with  the  certainty  that  only  rightfully  belongs 
to  knowledge.  The  elder  Aristotelian  method  of  fitting  the 
facts  to  the  theory  had  at  least  this  advantage,  that  it  enabled 
one  to  convict  the  theorist.  A  tailor  who  makes  a  coat  to  fit 
a  man  is  a  useful  person,  but  a  tailor  who  should  make  a  coat 
that  would  fit  all  men  would  be  a  genius. 

****** 

"  Wise  men  learn  from  reason,  fools  from  experience,"  is  a 
saying  which  has  often  been  repeated  in  various  forms.  But 
in  reality  there  is  nothing  so  diflficult  as  to  learn  from  experi- 
ence— which  is  to  say,  to  learn  from  the  result  of  one  series  of 
event  how  to  deal  with  another  and  a  different  series.  For  no 
two  series,  and,  indeed,  it  may  be  said  no  two  events,  are  ever 
wholly  alike,  so  that  no  experience  is  every  wholly  applicable. 
And  that  being  so,  the  original  question  still  remains,  how  far 
it  is  applicable,  which  involves  the  reconsideration  of  the  whole 
matter,  which  amounts  to  an  exclusion  of  experience.  If  we 
only  knew  it,  the  simplest  and  shortest  way  through  all  the 
tangles  of  life  were  still  to  keep  hold  on  the  clue  which  has  been 
given  to  us  in  such  intelligence  as  we  may  possess.  But  that 
involves  thought,  and  thought  involves  labor,  being,  indeed, 
the  hardest  kind  of  labor,  which  all  of  us  seek  most  to  avoid. 


FiOTSAM   AND   JETSAM.  161 


CHAPTER  XXXVIII. 

I  HAVE  a  notion  that  we  most  of  iis  wear  our  life  the  seamy 
side  without.  Whether  it  be  in  order  to  convince  other 
people,  or  in  order  to  persuade  ourselves  into  the  one  only  truly 
delicious  belief  that  we  are  martyrs,  we  all  seem  to  go  about  to 
say  that  we  are  worse  off  than  we  are.  I  declare  I  never  yet 
met  a  man  or  woman  who  would  admit  that  he  or  she  was 
rich,  happy,  fortunate  in  love,  lucky  at  play,  or  successful  in 
the  last  new  fashion.  I  have  thirty  thousand  a  year,  but  if 
you  only  knew  the  calls  on  me  to  keep  up  that  estate  ;  I  have 
youth,  health,  good  looks,  and  no  conscience,  but  Phillida 
flouts  me,  and  the  whole  universe  can't  produce  me  a  match 
for  that  bay  ;  the  only  woman  I  ever  loved  responds  to  my 
flame,  but  why  on  earth  does  she  still  go  on  flirting,  God 
knows  to  what  extent,  with  that  or  those  others  ?  This  out- 
side edge  backward  is  good,  but  look  at  my  broken  nose 
earned  in  achieving  it  ;  the  bonnet  is  pretty,  but  when  I  was 
in  Paris  I  saw  others  which  Were  really  sweet,  only  I  couldn't 
afford  them.  "  We  are  all  miserable  martyrs,  let  appearances 
say  what  they  will  ;  we  swear  we  are  martyrs,  and  if  you  don't 
admire  our  courage  in  bearing  up  under  it  all,  you  have  no 
heart."  Nevertheless,  perhaps  some  of  us  when  we  get  alone, 
or  lie  concealed  in  that  particular  retreat  of  delectation  which 
is  known  to  us  only,  do  sometimes  think  to  ourselves,  not  how 
unhappy  but  how  very  happy  we  are.  And  then  we  go  out 
into  the  world,  and  take  up  the  old  burden  of  woe — possibly 
for  fear  lest  somebody  should  find  out  our  treasure  and  come 
and  steal  it  away 

****** 

Bacon  once  said  that  knowledge  should  neither  be  "  a  couch 
whereon  to  recline  a  searching  and  restless  spirit,  nor  a  terrace 
for  a  wandering  and  variable  mind  to  walk  up  and  down,  with 
a  fair  prospect,  nor  a  tower  of  state  for  a  proud  mind  to  raise 


162  FLOTSAM    AND   JETSAM. 

itself  upon,  nor  a  fort  or  commanding  ground  for  strife  and 
contention,  nor  a  shop  for  profit  or  sale — but  a  rich  storehouse 
for  the  glory  of  the  Creator  and  the  relief  of  man's  estate." 
Which  is  to  say  that  the  business  of  each  man  is  to  sow 
himself  in  order  that  the  world  at  large  may  reap  ;  and  this, 
indeed,  is  true.  If  one  should  seek  either  knowledge  or  any 
other  thing  for  his  own  sole  uses,  his  work  were  very  slight, 
and  soon  done,  for  the  capacity  for  enjoyment  of  each  is 
limited  ;  but  to  fill  the  measure  of  the  glory  of  the  Creator, 
which  means  the  full  development  of  the  potentialities  of  the 
creation  and  the  relief  of  man's  estate — which  is  the  complete 
material  happiness  of  mankind — this  is  a  work  which  will  last 
every  man  his  life  through.  And  if  it  be  that  it  is  worth  while 
to  go  into  that  vineyard  at  all,  the  whole  faculties  and  force, 
to  the  last  ounce,  of  the  laborer  must  be  brought  into  and  be 
continued  in  action  to  the  end.  The  couch,  the  terrace,  the 
tower,  the  fort,  and  the  shop  are  not  for  him,  but  only  an  in- 
cessant painful  toil  of  gathering  stores  with  one  hand  and  dis- 
tributing them  with  the  other.  He  niust  look  for  no  peace, 
no  delectation,  no  rest  even,  but  a  continual  round  of  work. 
And,  as  men  are  constituted,  he  is  in  the  safest  position  who 
has  the  most  and  the  sharpest  goads  to  work.  So  that,  if  I 
were  asked  to  provide  a  man  with  capital  for  his  life,  I  should 
provide  him  with  poverty,  debt,  unrequited  love,  doubts,  and 
enemies.  There  are  few  who,  when  they  are  quit  of  these,  do 
anything  worth  doing,  unless  it  be  something  for  themselves — 
which  is  not  worth  doing. 

****** 

I  never  see  the  stars  and  the  sky,  which  happens  sometimes 
even  in  London,  but  I  think  lovingly  of  the  night-watches  on 
the  Billy  Baby,  and  wish  I  were  at  sea  again.  And  the  letters 
I  get  from  Ned  only  increase  my  impatience  at  walking  about 
these  lanes  of  houses  that  hedge  out  Grod's  world.  I  think, 
of  all  the  letters  with  which  a  relentless  Post-ofiice  deluges  me, 
Ned's  are  the  best.     Here  is  one  : 

*'  Sir,  i  now  Write  to  inform  you  that  the  vessel  and  things 


FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM.  163 

are  all  right  and  that  i  am  quite  well  and  shall  be  glad  when  i 
get  to  sea  again  the  weather  has  Been  very  Bad  here  this  last 
fortnight.  Sir  i  shall  be  much  obliged  if  you  will  please  to 
send  me  soom  Money  we  shall  want  several  Jobs  done  before 
we  Go  to  sea  a  new  topmast  and  some  of  our  cooking  pans 
Want  New  Bottoms  in  them  i  have  got  the  standing  rigging 
down  and  Repaired  and  up  again  and  set  up,  and  there  was  a 
man  washed  out  of  a  boat  here  last  week  iand  i  keep  the  things 
all  well  aired  and  most  of  the  Bed  Close  are  a  shore  getting 
washed  so  i  must  conclude." 

This  last  phrase  especially  delights  me,  being  always  repeat- 
ed, so  I  must  conclude,  as  though  that  were  a  consequence  of 
the  bed-clothes  being  ashore  and  the  man  being  washed  out  of 
the  boat.  How  it  all  makes  one  long  to  be  alone,  again  with 
the  sea  and  the  sky  and  the  books. 

****** 

I  am  getting  very  sick  of  the  widow  and  the  orphan.  Those 
stage  properties  have,  it  seems  to  me,  been  vastly  overdone  in 
the  desire  to  win  reprobation  for  the  conventional  villain. 
Many  preachers  have  taken  up  their  cause  against  the  villain, 
who  is  represented  as  enticing  them  mto  financial  schemes  and 
bringing  them  to  ruin  through  the  confidence  they  place  in 
him.  Now,  I  am  ashamed  to  confess  that  I  don't  believe 
either  widows  or  orphans  to  be  anything  like  such  fools,  or  so 
confiding  as  they  look.  My  conviction  is  that  when  they  take 
their  "  little  all"  (I  use  the  sacred  phrase)  out  of  the  dull 
Three  per  Cents,  and  put  it  into  the  Snowy  Mountain  Mines 
(Salted),  which  promise  them  thirty  per  cent,  they  are  well 
aware  that  they  are  going  in  for  a  gamble,  which  involves  a 
risk  proportionate  to  the  chance  of  gain.  And  it  is  nonsensi- 
cal to  mark  the  misses  and  not  the  hits,  to  take  no  account  of 
their  winnings,  and  to  represent  them  as  victims  whenever  they 
lose.  I  have  nothing,  indeed,  to  say  for  the  villain  of  the 
piece,  and  I  am  delighted  when  he  is  discovered  and  the  most 
poetical  justice  is  meted  out  to  him.  But  what  I  claim  is  that 
the  widow  and  the  orphan,  so  far  from  being  his  victims,  are 


164  FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM. 

his  abettors,  and,  indeed,  if  the  matter  be  thoroughly  viewed, 
his  accomplices.  They,  indeed,  first  invented  him,  for  it  is 
their  craving  for  high  interest  which  first  put  it  into  his  mind 
to  offer  them  great  risks. 


CHAPTER  XXXIX. 

If  there  were  wanting  anything  to  convince  an  outside  ob- 
server of  the  lunacy  of  Englishmen — which  is,  of  course,  to  say 
of  those  who  are  commonly  taken  for  their  lungs  and  their  im- 
pudence to  represent  Englishmen — it  should  be  their  methods 
of  judging  the  policy  of  such  foreign  countries  as  have  a  policy. 
They  know  well  that  if  they  have  to  do  with  a  tailor  or  a 
carpet  manufacturer,  with  a  workman  or  an  artist,  with  a  coal- 
owner  or  a  parson,  the  only  sure  ground  is  that  which  is  gained 
by  a  knowledge  of  his  own  self-interest  (misunderstood),  and 
they  would  and  do  laugh  at  the  notion  of  religion,  justice, 
sentiment,  or  chance  being  taken  at  all  into  account.  Yet, 
when  they  come  to  consider  the  actions  of  Foreign  States- 
men, they  declare  and  seem  to  believe  that  sentiment,  pas- 
sion, and  chance  are  the  only,  or  at  least  the  most,  important 
influences  at  work.  The  marriage  of  a  Prince  and  a  Princess 
is  suflBcient  to  cancel  all  the  policy  that  has  been  laboriously 
worked  out  for  centuries.  The  proposal  of  a  toast  by  a  mon- 
arch is  treated  as  though  it  were  a  pledge  of  peace  to  the 
monarch  toasted  ;  even  the  dining  of  a  company  of  shopmen 
volunteers  is  held  to  be  a  pregnant  international  event. 
Meantime  the  permanent  officials  carry  on  their  traditions  re- 
gardless of  all  ;  certain  sordid  unavowed  agents  whose  names 
are  never  printed,  and  who  really  do  the  work,  continue  to 
borrow  their  way  to  the  desired  end,  and  one  day  the  world 
wakes  to  find  that  *' family  alliances,"  toasts,  banquets,  and 
the  rest  mean  no  more  than  treaties.  Having  learned  this,  the 
world  continues  to  argue  as  though  they  did  mean  something. 
****** 


FLOTSAM    AND   JETSAM.  165 

What  is  the  ideal  man  ?  Nay,  in  what  does  the  approach 
to  the  ideal  man  consist  ?  Are  physical  strength  and  beauty 
necessary  ?  Are  the  virtues  necessary  ?  Is  the  development 
of  faculties  and  of  capabilities  necessary  ?  And,  if  so,  of 
what  kind  and  in  what  degree  are  these  to  be  ?  Above  all,  of 
what  kind  ?  For  the  notion  of  them  differs  in  every  clime, 
almost  in  every  individual.  The  story  of  the  painter,  who  ex- 
posed his  ideal  to  the  con*ection  of  the  market-place,  has  been 
repeated  over  and  over  again  any  time  since  the  world  began, 
whenever  any  has  dared  the  trial.  Is  there,  then,  no  ideal 
man  ?  Yes,  indeed,  is  there.  It  is  enslirined  in  every  man's 
breast,  and  is  called  God. 

Probably  no  man — unless,  perhaps,  it  be  Sir  William 
Vernon  Harcourt — really  believes  in  his  own  superior  clever- 
ness, but  only  in  the  inordinate  folly  of  the  rest  of  mankind. 
The  best  and  wisest  have  confessed  either  directly  or  by  im- 
plication the  consciousness  they  have  felt  of  being  neither  very 
wise  nor  very  good  ;  but  such  men  could  but  have  seen  that 
they  were  better  and  wiser  than  their  fellows.  Hence  the  dis- 
gust at  the  whole  concern  in  which  they  have  always  ended. 
Perhaps  it  is  still  better  to  be  a  fool  and  not  know  it  than  to 
be  a  wiseacre  and  not  be  sure  of  it. 

If  it  be  the  fact  that  some  man  has  invented  a  means  of 
toughening  glass  and  porcelain  so  that  they  will  not  break,  we 
are  robbed  of  the  greatest  charm  of  the  two  most  beautiful  of 
all  manufactured  things.  For  the  fragility  of  all  that  is  beau- 
tiful is  one  of  its  chiefest  delights.  It  addresses  an  irresisti- 
ble appeal  to  you  to  enjoy  it  keenly  because  it  cannot  be  enjoyed 
for  long.  Who  would  care  for  a  violet  that  could  retain  its 
freshness  and  sweetness  for  a  year  ?  The  bloom  of  the  peach 
is  delicious  and  grateful,  because  a  touch  destroys  it.  The 
charm  of  it  is  in  this,  that  it  is  a  fresh  creation  come  to  us  out 
of  the  unseen,  it  is  irresistible  because  you  must  take  it  quickly 


166  FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM. 

or  never.  If  unhappily  we  could  put  our  peaches  or  violets 
by,  and  take  them  out  again  as  fresh  as  ever,  they  would  not 
be  wortli  regarding — for  the  very  sufficient  reason  that  we 
could  regard  them  whenever  we  pleased. 


CHAPTER  XL. 

I  KNOW  a  bootmaker  who  makes  excellent  boots  ;  his  great 
ambition  is  to  cease  to  make  them,  to  keep  a  shop,  and  to  su- 
perintend workmen  :  I  know  a  barber  who,  as  soon  as  he  was 
discovered  to  shave  and  cut  hair  well,  declined  to  do  so  any 
longer,  and  took  to  selling  scents  and  hair-brushes  :  I  know 
the  ideal  butler  and  the  ideal  maid  ;  they  have  left  the  service 
they  so  thoroughly  performed,  and  have  taken  a  public-house 
together,  where  they  are  now  in  course  of  ruining  themselves 
for  the  sake  of  a  brewer.  Yet  all  these  people  believe  that 
they  have  "  got  on  in  life"  as  soon  as  they  succeed  in  aban- 
doning their  proper  business,  and  taking  up  one  they  don't 
understand.  This  notion  is,  indeed,  so  generally  received  that 
it  is  acted  upon  universally  in  these  clever  modern  times  of 
ours.  We  have  elevated  into  a  principle  the  practice  of  select- 
ing people  for  one  kind  of  work  by  testing  them  in  another. 
A  man  is  a  great  orator,  therefore  he  is  held  to  be  a  great 
statesman  ;  he  is  a  successful  partisan,  therefore  an  admirable 
minister  ;  an  able  writer,  therefore  a  good  editor  ;  a  good 
algebraist,  therefore  a  good  civil  servant ;  a  winning  advocate, 
therefore  a  good  judge  ;  an  arithmetician,  therefore  a  soldier  ; 
a  theorist,  therefore  a  practitioner.  This  might  be  well  if  the 
capacity  for  the  work  we  want  were  not  so  often  not  merely  not 
indicated,  but  actually  excluded  by  the  capacity  for  the  work 
by  which  we  judge.  I  have  seen  men  compete  at  a  greasy 
pole  for  the  leg  of  mutton  on  its  top,  but  I  never  heard  the 
winner  declared  to  be  the  best  butcher.  But  then,  it  is  true, 
this  was  a  matter  of  no  importance. 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM.  167- 

Somebody  has  said,  "  There  are  more  women  in  the  world 
than  one."  Not  so.  There  is  either  one  woman  only,  or 
there  are  none.  In  the  same  way  somebody  has  said  there  are 
more  worlds  than  one.  That  may  be,  but  if  Mercury,  Jupiter, 
Saturn,  Neptune,  and  Uranus  are  really  inhabited,  it  is  by 
people  of  entirely  different  construction  from  ourselves.  We 
can't  inhabit  them,  that  is  certain,  wherefore  for  us  there  is 
only  this  one  world  possible — only  this  or  none  at  present, 
whatever  there  may  be  in  the  future  when  our  resolved  atoms 
may  be  brought  together  in  different  form.  So  with  that 
woman,,  For  as  soon  as  you  admitted  her  existence  you  thereby 
excluded  all  others,  and  saw  them  only  "  as  trees  walking." 
You  can  breathe  her  atmosphere,  live  with  her  seasons,  grow 
in  her  storm  and  sunshine,  and  feed  upon  her  fruits.  To  do 
as  much  with  another  you  must  be  a  different  creature.  You 
know  no  more  how  or  why  it  is  than  how  or  why  yon  came 
upon  this  planet  ;  all  you  know  is  that  she  and  it  are  all  alone 
for  you,  and  that  for  you  no  others  are  possible — for  the 
present. 

****** 

I  hate  people  who  are  open  to  conviction,  no  less  than  I  de- 
test those  who  never  sulk  :  the  former  only  prove  that  they  do 
not  reason,  the  latter  that  they  do  not  feel.  Yet  one  hears 
people  constantly  claim  to  their  credit  that  when  offended 
they  are  "  very  angry  for  a  short  time,  and  then  it  is  all  over  ;" 
as  though  it  were  a  merit  either  to  take  offence  where  there  is 
none,  or  to  dismiss  it  shortly  where  there  is.  When  one's  fel- 
low is  just  there  is  nothing  to  forget  or  to  remember,  for  so 
much  is  his  duty  ;  but  when  he  either  goes  beyond  it  and  is 
generous,  or  falls  below  it  and  is  unjust,  neither  the  one  nor  the 
other  can  be,  or  should  be,  forgotten,  nor  can  either  fail  of 
its  effect  upon  those  who  appreciate  what  they  mean  ;  for  they 
throw  the  whole  relations  out  of  gear,  and  introduce  into  them 
a  new  element  which  must  affect  them  to  the  end.  It  is  the 
blessing  and  the  curse  of  life  that  good  actions  and  bad  do  not 
die,  but  bear  their  fruit  to  all  time.     You  cut  my  father's 


168  FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM. 

throat,  or  you  rob  me  of  a  shilling,  and  I  am  not  to  forget  it : 
on  the  contrary,  I  am  to  hang  and  imprison  you,  without 
anger.  But  you  kill  my  trust  in  you — or,  in  other  words,  you 
kill  yourself  in  me — and  you  rob  me  of  my  one  cherished 
dream  worth  more  than  many  shillings  ;  and  then  I  am  to  cry 
out  on  you  with  big  words,  and  there  an  end. 

If  you  are  perfect  I  will  trust  you  ;  but  as  I  know  you  are 
not  perfect  I  can  only  trust  you  if  you  will  lie  to  me.  I  have 
not  confidence  in  you,  bat  I  am  willing  to  affect  a  confidence, 
if  you  will  ease  my  vanity  by  pretending  thoroughly  to  deserve 
it.  But  beware,  above  all,  that  you  do  not  let  me  even  sus- 
pect the  truth.  If  once  you  admit  to  me  that  you  have  vio- 
lated my  confidence,  or  that  you  have  been  so  much  as  sorely 
tempted  to  violate  it,  if  you  are  not  ready  to  assure  me  that 
you  would  go  to  the  stake  rather  than  do  that,  then  farewell  to 
all  confidence.  What  ?  You  say  that  the  very  fact  that  you 
allow  yourself  not  to  be  perfect,  the  very  fact  that  you,  unsolic- 
ited and  unforced,  admit  that  you  are  not  armed  at  all  points, 
should  be  to  me  the  greater,  as  it  is  the  only  proof  of  your 
sincerity  and  a  guarantee  that,  so  far  as  you  can,  you  will  re- 
deem your  trust.  What  ?  You  say  that  your  confession  of 
fault  is  a  proof  of  repentance  and  an  earnest  of  amendment. 
Why,  you  are  talking  old  Christianity.  /  talk  modern  logic. 
I  tell  you  that  your  sincerity  is  nothing  to  me,  that  what  I 
want  is  to  be  able  to  regard  you,  and  to  say  that  you  look  as  if 
you  were  sincere.  Be  sure,  then,  that  you  lie  to  me.  Be 
sure  you  whiten  the  outside  of  the  sepulchre — then  will  I  swear 
to  all  the  world  and  myself  that  there  are  no  dead  men's  bones 
inside. 

Certainly  the  most  tiresome  of  all  inflictions  is  to  hear  one 
of  the  modern  lights  hold  forth  against  what  they  are  pleased 
to  call  "  conventionalities."  If  you  would  believe  them  there 
is  to  be  no  law,  and  no  rule  of  outward  conduct,  the  expres- 
sion of  that  law  ;  but  each  creature  is  to  exercise,  perfect,  and 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM.  169 

carry  into  practice  his  own  rule  for  every  occasion  that  may 
arise,  quite  as  it  may  suit  that  creature.  There  are  to  be  no 
general  principles,  no  general  rules,  but  only  a  general  inven- 
tion of  special  rules.  All  which  may  be  very  well  for  the 
clever  people  who  feel  that  they  are  not  to  be  abashed  by  any 
combination.  But  then  w^hat  are  we  fools  to  do  ?  We  can't 
argue  everything  down  from  Genesis  to  the  Day  of  Judgment 
in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye,  and  to  us  it  is  of  great  comfort 
and  of  great  assistance  to  be  able  to  appeal  to  certain  rules  as 
determined  by  the  wisdom  of  our  ancestors  to  be  applicable  to 
certain  cases.  I  have  been  taught  that  I  am  not  to  eat  peas 
with  a  knife,  and  that  I  am  not  to  lie.  It  may  be  that  a  de- 
bate and  a  division  in  Parliament,  which  is  the  final  test  of  all 
things,  might  prove  that  I  am  to  eat  this  particular  pea  with 
that  particular  knife,  or  that  I  am  to  tell  that  especial  lie. 
But  meantime  I  have  got  to  act,  and  how  am  I  to  do  it  unless 
I  act  under  the  rule  that  I  know  ?  Whenever  I  come  across 
one  who  refuses  the  rule  I  look  upon  him  with  suspicion,  for  I 

know  that  one  to  be  either  a  rebel  or  a  genius. 

****** 

My  love  and  I  quarrelled.  She  was  wrong,  and  I  forgave 
her  and  loved  her  the  more  for  it.  My  love  and  I  quarrelled 
again.  She  was  right,  and  I  forswore  her  and  loved  her  no 
longer.  But  we  quarrelled  yet  again.  Both  of  us  were  wrong, 
and  I  forgave  her  again  and  loved  her  better  than  ever. 


CHAPTER  XLI. 

The  truth.  Yes,  but  which  truth  ?  Yours  or  mine  ?  The 
truth  in  both  of  us  is  what  we  can  manufacture  out  of  our  moral 
and  intellectual  machine  when  it  works  smoothly  ;  but  each 
machine  must  be  used  as  it  is — that  is  to  say,  as  it  has  come  to 
be  with  the  mendings  and  patchings  of  a  lifetime.     There  are 


I'J'O  FLOTSAM  AKl)  JETSAM. 

parts  of  them  that  will  work  in  like  manner  and  produce  like 
results;  but  that  is  only  because  we  have  agreed  beforehand 
upon  all  the  pipes  and  cog-wheels.  We  both  say  that  two  and 
two  make  four,  or  fourteen  as  the  case  may  be,  but  only  by 
virtue  of  having  agreed  first  upon  the  original  notions,  and  then 
upon  their  subsequent  treatment.  But  now  take  somewhat 
out  of  chaos — take  the  entirely  new  notion — and  without 
agreement  run  it  through  any  two  machines,  and  you  shall  find 
it  come  out  of  each  one  monstrously  unlike,  both  to  its  original 
self  and  to  the  product  of  the  other. 

****** 

No  man  does  good  work  when  his  success  is  assured.  It  is 
when  he  is  struggling  with  the  world,  when  all  men  revile  him 
and  persecute  him,  when  he  is  still  utterly  rejected,  that  he  is 
strongest.  Nay,  it  is  then,  too,  that  he  is  most  confident,  for 
his  confidence  then  only  springs  from  the  faith  that  is  in  him, 
and  is  not  made  up  of  any  external  contributions.  He  goes  to 
war  then  of  his  own  cost,  and  then  only  is  he  sure  to  fight  well. 
If  he  achieves  success,  the  only  way  by  which  he  can  escape 
from  its  fatal  influence  is  to  work  for  generations  beyond  the 
present,  and  so  retain  the  doubt  whether  it  is  achieved. 

*  *  *  4r  *  * 

The  denouement  of  a  play,  so  far  from  relieving  me,  only 
diverts  me.  It  always  amounts  in  effect  to  a  renunciation  of 
the  play  itself.  Through  four  acts  and  the  better  part  of  a  fifth 
you  show  by  examples,  extreme  but  still  possible,  that  men  and 
women  are  foolish,  passionate,  unreasoning  beings — a  fact 
wbich,  indeed,  commends  itself  to  all  who  knew  them,  and 
upon  which  the  whole  interest  of  your  play  hangs.  And  then 
at  the  end  you  suddenly  turn  round  and  recant  this  as  a  heresy 
and  a  lie  ;  for  you  seek  to  show  by  your  denouement  that  they 
have  been  reasonable  all  through,  or  at  least  have  been  working 
unreasonably  to  a  reasonable  end.  So  that  you  have  been 
laughing  at  us  through  those  four  acts  and  a  fraction,  and  you 
do  want  us  to  believe  that  we  shall  gather  grapes  of  thorns  and 


FLOTSAM   AND  JETSAM.  171 

figs  of  thistles.  In  reply  to  which  we  may  fairly  laugh  at  you 
for  your  folly,  and  despise  you  for  your  dishonesty.  Poetic 
justice,  indeed  !  Yes,  in  a  poetic  world,  but  not  in  this  ;  yes, 
in  the  course  of  generations  (for  arc  not  the  sins  of  the  fathers 
visited  on  the  children  ?),  but  not  now.  There  are  many  good 
plays,  but  in  order  to  make  them  true  or  valuable  as  represen- 
tations of  this  tangled  ridiculous  knot  of  life,  which  is  never 
cut  by  any  denouement,  they  all  want  to  lose  their  last  act. 


One  of  the  phrases  which  most  amuses  me  is  that  of  the 
**  power  of  the  press."  As  though  the  mere  fact  of  putting 
nonsense  into  print  gave  it  any  more  power  with  reasonable 
people  than  it  had  before,  or  as  though  it  were  necessary  to  put 
it  into  print  in  order  to  get  it  into  the  heads  of  unreasonable 
people.  The  only  power  the  press  has  is  that  of  making  silly 
persons  believe  that  it  has  power,  until  they  discover  the  con- 
trary. This  is,  indeed,  an  operation  which  will  take  some  of 
them  a  day  or  two,  and  during  that  day  or  two  the  press  has 
their  alliance — for  what  it  is  worth.  But  if,  indeed,  the  press 
were  honest — yes,  if  indeed. 


Two  things  does  this  strange  world  respect — ignorance  and 
weakness.  They  are  called,  indeed,  by  the  names  of  purity 
and  innocence  ;  but  in  reality  they  are  not  these,  neither  are 
they  like  them.  Indeed,  the  former  exclude  the  latter. 
Purity  implies  the  knowledge  and  rejection  of  impurity  ;  inno- 
cence the  possession  and  the  forbearance  of  nocent  power.  But 
clothed  in  these  names  it  is  the  easier  for  me  to  put  a  premium 
on  the  qualities  which  I  really  desire  to  find  in  those  who  come 
into  my  life.  The  man  or  woman  who  is  neither  ignorant  nor 
weak  may  comprehend  me,  and  my  littleness — may  perhaps 
conquer  me  and  my  pretensions.  Thus  shall  I  be  reduced  to 
nothing.  Then  let  me  find  in  them  nothing  but  ignorance  and 
weakness  :  and  let  me  praise  them  for  purity  and  innocence. 


173  FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM. 

For  this  too,  while  it  confirms  them  in  their  subjection,  will 
ad''  also  to  my  renown  with  others. 

Against  stupidity  the  gods  fight  in  vain.  Yet,  perhaps,  if 
they  were  not  gods  but  men,  they  might  not  vainly  struggle 
even  against  this.  For  if  at  the  moment  it  is  hard  to  with- 
stand the  irritation  which  it  is  the  privilege  of  stupidity  to 
raise,  by  a  single  word  opening  a  window  into  its  own  depths, 
yet  when  one  comes  to  think  of  it  there  is  something  in  it  that 
appeals  very  powerfully  to  human  nature.  The  wisest  and 
ablest  of  men  must,  I  should  suppose,  have  a  secret  suspicion 
that  they,  too,  are  stupid  in  some  matters  ;  and  this,  when 
they  remember  it,  must  make  them  look  charitably  on  those 
who  are  stupid  in  others.  Otherwise  they  would  never  have 
the  patience  to  sit  down  and  unravel  so  patiently  the  tangled 
skein  of  imreason,  merely  in  order  to  demonstrate  to  others  the 
conclusions  which  they  have  reached  alone,  and  which  others 
might  therefore  equally  reach  alone.  It  would  be  much  shorter 
and  more  gratifying  simply  to  break  the  heads  of  all  the  stupid 
people  by  a  summary  process.  But  then  we  should  be  badly 
off  for  what  is  called  common  sense,  which  is  nothing  else  than 
stupidity  highly  developed. 

It  is  amusing  enough  to  see  a  man  going  about,  as  so  many 
men  do,  declaring  that  he  '*  wants  something  to  do,"  and 
can't  get  it.  The  real  meaning  of  that  is  that  he  means  to  do 
nothing.  For  in  this  world  there  is  much  labor  and  few  la- 
borers ;  and  those  who  really  bear  the  burden  have  so  much 
more  than  they  can  endure,  that  they  are  constantly  on  the 
look-out  for  men  to  whom  they  may  delegate  a  part  of  their 
work.  And  they  just  as  constantly  find  that  of  all  things  in 
the  world  it  is  the  most  difficult  to  discover  anybody  who  will 
really  take  such  a  delegation,  and  conscientiously  act  in  its 
spirit.  When  a  man  can  readily  be  found  honestly  to  groom 
my  horse,  to  brush  my  clothes,  or  to  clean  my  boots,  then  I 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM.  173 

shall  believe  that  there  are  men  ready  and  willing  to  undertake 
and  to  do  honestly  the  work  next  above  that  in  dignity,  and 
consequently  in  difficulty.  Until  then  I  shall  venture  to  think 
I  understand  how  it  is  that  one  part  of  mankind  complain  that 
they  can't  get  work  done,  the  other  part  that  they  can't  get 
work  to  do.  It  is  that  the  former  want  men  who  will  give 
themselves  to  the  work,  and  the  latter  want  the  reward  of  the 
work  to  be  given  to  them  and  yet  not  to  give  themselves  to  it. 
If  we  could  only  come  to  an  agreement  upon  that  it  would  solve 
most  of  the  difficulties  of  this  nether  planet. 

****** 

I  remember  that  what  beat  the  National  Guards  in  the  siege 
of  Paris  was  the  marching  and  the  carrying  of  knapsacks. 
They  were  both  ready  and  willing  to  fight  in  battle  ;  but  this 
dull,  dreary  plodding  along  roads  like  beasts  of  burden  broke 
their  constancy.  Yet  that  is  precisely  the  only  valuable  qual- 
ity. Anybody  will  fight  well  in  the  excitement  of  battle — for, 
indeed,  physical  courage  is  the  most  vulgar  of  qualities — any- 
body will  speak  well  to  a  listening  senate.  But  to  toil  through 
the  miry,  unregarded  ways  that  lead  to  the  field  ;  to  sit  down 
in  the  closet  and  dp  work  that  shows  as  yet  no  fruit — this  chal- 
'lenges  a  high  spirit  and  a  real  faith  hardly  to  be  found. 


CHAPTER  XLII. 

At  the  bottom  of  every  man's  mind  there  is  the  belief  in  the 
goodness  of  men.  This  alone  explains  how  it  is  that  we 
always  feel  surprise  long  before  we  arrive  at  indignation,  when 
we  become  aware  that  any  one  has  done  to  us  an  unjust  or  un- 
generous act.  We  do  all  believe  that  men  seek  to  observe  the 
elementary  laws  ;  which  means  that  we  do  all  believe  in  those 
^lenientarjr  laws  ;  which  means  that  we  believe  in  those  laws 


174  FLOTSAM  AND   JETSAM. 

being  embodied  in  any  and  every  system  of  morality  ;  which 
means  that  any  system  is  condemned  that  claims  to  be  the  only 
one  embodying  them. 

****** 

Funny  creatures,  indeed,  are  those  men  and  women  with 
whom  we  have  to  deal.  They  will  say  a  thing — nay,  they  will 
swear  it,  invoking  the  worst  penalty  they  have  invented  for 
falsehood  in  the  shape  of  a  future  punishment — and  straight- 
way they  will  go  away  and  do  the  exact  contrary  thing,  to  their 
own  stultification,  falsification,  and  destruction  though  it  be. 
They  pretend  to  believe  a  something  ;  that  is  to  say,  they  pre- 
tend to  have  given  the  whole  of  their  faculties  to  its  examina- 
tion, and  to  have  reached  a  sure  conclusion  upon  it — for  this 
only  is  belief — and  yet  they  are  ready  to  be  converted  to  a  dia- 
metrically opposite  belief  at  a  moment's  notice.  Nay,  them- 
selves— their  own  dear  selves — they  present  to  you  as  though 
they  were  something  more  than  mere  grains  of  sand  furnished 
with  motive  muscles,  walking  between  heaven  and  earth. 
They  have  their  dignity,  forsooth,  which  you  are  not  to 
offend.  And  when  it  comes  to  the  point  you  will  find,  such 
asses  are  they,  that  all  this  amounts  to  is  that  the  offence  is  not 
to  be  inflicted  in  a  particular  manner  or  form  ;  that  is  to  say, 
if  you  so  manipulate  it  that  they  themselves  do  not  understand 
you  ;  if  you  will  but  give  them  something  on  which  they  may 
fasten  while  all  the  world  fastens  on  something  else  ;  if  you  do 
but  leave  a  loophole  for  their  vanity  to  creep  through,  that  will 
easily  drag  all  that  is  behind  after  it.  But  and  if  you  leave  no 
vent  for  this,  the  earth  itself  may  not  hold  the  explosion  that 
ensues.  And  what  makes  one  so  angry  is  that  one  knows  that 
one  is  of  them,  and  like  them,  and  that  one  acts  even  as  they 
do.     This  is  indeed  better. 

****** 

I  don't  wonder  that  every  disgusted  philosopher  should 
always  at  last  end  in  philology,  for  the  confusion  of  tongues  is 
as  great  as  it  was  in  Babel,  and  with  this  difference,  that  we 


TLOTSAM  AKD  JETSAM.  175 

don't  know,  or  pretend  we  don't  know,  the  confusion.  In 
truth,  nothing  is  ever  understood  as  it  is  said.  When  I,  A. 
B. ,  make  an  assertion,  I  can  and  do  make  it  only  according  to 
the  limits  of  ray  capacity,  and  though  it  be  the  meanest  and 
merest  of  platitudes,  yet  it  requires  the  whole  of  my  nature,  acted 
upon  by  the  whole  of  my  life,  to  produce  it  in  that  precise 
manner  in  which  I  have  conceived  and  do  present  it.  You,  C. 
D.,  may  indeed  repeat  the  same  words  with  a  form  of  assent, 
but  unless  you  were  I,  or  I  you,  there  is  no  possibility  of  your 
accepting  the  assertion  as  I  make  it.  The  notions  on  which  it 
depends  have  a  different  history  in  each  of  us,  the  conclusion  it 
represents  has  been  arrived  at  in  a  different  manner  and  with  a 
differing  degree  of  conviction  in  each,  and  it  occupies  a 
different  relative  position  among  the  aggregate  of  convictions 
which  make  up  the  spiritual  person  in  each  of  us.  We  all  feel 
this,  even  though  we  may  deny  it ;  and  the  first  thing  we  do 
with  any  assertion  is  to  make  the  endeavor  to  eliminate  from 
it  the  personality  of  him  who  makes  it  (that  is  to  say,  its  very 
essence),  and  to  bring  it  down  to  such  bare  proportions  as  may 
be  clothed  with  our  personality.  Age  is  listened  to  under  pro- 
test of  senility,  youth  under  protest  of  inexperience, the  earnest 
under  protest  of  enthusiasm,  the  careless  under  protest  of  in- 
difference. And  so  through  the  whole  category,  until  we  come 
to  this,  that  the  only  thing  a  man  can  receive  is  the  echo  of 
himself,  and  even  that  the  echo  understands  otherwise  than  he. 
****** 

The  curse  of  novelty  is  that  it  devours  itself  and  leaves  us 
still  hungry.  The  new  thing  does  indeed  give  me  a  moment 
of  pleasure,  which  is  the  moment  before  I  have  grasped  it ; 
once  attained,  it  instantly  becomes  usual,  natural,  old,  tire- 
some, disgusting.  "  More  worlds  to  conquer"  must  he  fatally 
seek  who  has  conquered  this  ;  yes,  and  then  a  new  universe. 
To  achieve  success  is  only  to  reap  disappointment  in  its  worst 
form.  Why,  then,  the  truly  practical  course  would  be  to  reach 
at  the  impracticable.  The  impossible  ideal  that  you  set  up 
shall  never  be  yours  ;  but  you  shall  but  the  more  certainly  ap- 


176  FLOTSAM   AND  JETSAM. 

proach  it,  yes,  and  bring  others  toward  it.  You  shall,  in- 
deed, achieve  in  this  minor  successes  and  reap  minor  disap- 
pointments as  you  make  them  good  ;  but  your  main  stake  is 
safe  ;  and  when  the  end  comes  you  have  not  spent  your  for- 
tune, but  may  leave  it  a  legacy  to  the  world  at  large.  In  fine 
the  greatest  satisfaction  is  derived  from  seeking  that  you  shall 
never  find,  and  sowing  that  you  shall  not  reap.  This  is  in- 
sane, but  it  is  true. 

*  *  «  *  *  It 

**  The  bramble  coveted  the  power  which  the  vine,  olive,  and 
fig-tree  refused.  The  worst  and  basest  of  men  are  ambitious 
of  the  highest  places,  which  the  best  and  wisest  reject."  So 
says  Algernon  Sidney,  and  to  this  day  it  is  true.  But  it  is 
only  true  because  the  men  who  covet  the  highest  places  do  not 
intend  to  fill  them,  but  only  to  reap  the  rewards  of  them.  The 
burden  he  takes  upon  himself  who  assumes  to  instruct  or  lead 
his  fellows  is  so  tremendous  that,  if  he  means  to  bear  it,  no  re- 
ward of  personal  power  or  profit  can  be  tempting.  And,  in 
fact,  the  real  instruction  and  leadership  of  men  always  has  been 
assumed  by  those  who  have  derived  neither  honor  nor  profit 
from  it.  But  to  the  titular  leadership  both  are  attached,  and 
therefore  is  it  that  the  worst  and  the  basest  seek  them.  It  is 
what  is  called  the  division  of  labor,  that  the  soldier  should  fall 
unregarded  in  the  trench  and  the  general  march  gloriously  in 
over  his  body. 

****** 

Know  yourself.  Yes,  but  how  ?  You  can  only  judge 
yourself  by  yourself — that  is  to  say,  you  can  only  estimate 
what  you  are  by  what  you  are.  It  is  like  telling  a  pair  of 
scales  to  weigh  themselves.  Yet  the  attempt  to  do  it  we  all 
make,  and  all  find  in  it  the  greatest  amusement,  even  if  not  a 
great  advantage.  And  it  is  the  more  amusing  because  it  al- 
ways takes  this  form — ' '  If  I  were  somebody  else  what  should 
I  think  of  myself?"  The  answer,  nevertheless,  always  does 
depend  upoQ  what  you  are  ;  and  the  proof  is  that  what  vou 


FLOTSAM  AKD  JETSAM.  177 

thought  of  yourself,  your  aims,  and  your  conduct  in  a  given 
case  a  year  ago  is  quite  different  from  what  you  think  of  them 
now  with  reference  to  the  same  case. 


CHAPTER  XLIII. 

There  is  no  feeling,  I  think,  so  painful  as  this — that  one  is 
about  to  be  ungrateful.  You  know  that  that  man  or  woman  has 
been  good  to  you,  and  you  see  that  you  are  about  to  do  a 
thing,  or  a  series  of  things,  which  must  amount  to  asserting 
that  you  owe  no  thanks  for  the  good,  and  are  under  no  obliga- 
tion to  return  it.  You  may  make  any  excuse  you  like  to  your- 
self ;  you  may  say  that  the  chain  by  which  you  are  thus  bound 
galls  you  ;  that  you  are  worn  out  by  it ;  that  after  all,  properly 
viewed,  it  is  no  chain  at  all.  All  this  avails  nothing,  for  you 
know  better,  and  it  is  always  with  a  secret  pang  that  at  last  you 
go  and  do  as  other  men  do.  For  you,  too,  believe  that  you 
are  not  as  other  men  are,  and  you  cannot  forgive  yourself  for 
so  acting  as  they  act,  while  you  remember  it.  But,  then,  you 
can  forget  it,  and  since  you  alone  know  this  secret  history 
there  is  no  harm  done.  For  in  all  your  confessions  that  which 
you  will  never  confess  is  the  act  which  you  yourself  blame. 
****** 

We  know  well  that  in  this  world  nothing  grows  up  as  it  is 
planted,  and  that  the  best  laid  schemes,  if  they  involve  any- 
thing more  than  the  most  simple  and  immediate  object,  do 
produce  quite  different  results  from  those  they  were  intended 
to  bring  about.  Accident,  we  say,  which  is  but  another  name 
for  our  own  ignorance  or  carelessness.  At  any  rate  we  might 
learn  from  the  universal  experience,  that  it  is  never  to  be  ex- 
pected that  the  present  as  we  know  it  will  come  out  in  the 
future  as  we  order  it.  If  it  does  so  come  out,  it  is  not 
because  there  has  been  no  error  in  the  calculation,  but  because 


178  FLOTSAM  AKD  JETSAM. 

the  errors  have  compensated  each  other.  We  can't  tell  what 
to-morrow  shall  bring  forth,  and  yet — which  is  my  complaint — 
we  all  assume  to  act  to-day  as  though  we  could.  This  we  call 
foresight.  To-day,  indeed,  is  here,  this  moment  is  ours  ; 
whatever  the  rest  my  be.  Suppose,  now,  we  were  to  decide  to 
live  in  it,  and  leave  trying  to  live  in  the  next  until  the  next 
comes. 


CHAPTER  XLIV. 

There  is  no  murderer  so  ruthless  and  implacable  as  your  able 
editor.  He  is  the  agent  of  all  the  swindles  and  all  the  hy- 
pocrisies, and  he  will  emasculate,  maim,  destroy,  and  drag  with 
his  corkscrew  pen  the  very  soul  out  of  all  you  shall  write  for 
him,  who  have  given  your  whole  soul  and  being  to  that  writ- 
ing. For  his  first  notion  is  to  serve  the  commercial  devil  who 
has  taken  possession  of  the  swept  and  garnished  house  ;  he  is  a 
huckster  who  has  set  up  a  stall  wherewith  to  make  a  profit. 
He  calls  himself  prince,  society,  minister,  pontiff,  people,  and 
he  lives  by  the  adulteration  of  your  pure  wares — which  is  com- 
petition. This,  indeed,  were  little  if  you  could  edit  yourself  ; 
but  you  cannot,  and  to  the  end  of  time  you  shall  be  called 
upon  to  hand  over  your  offspring  to  be  defaced,  unless  you 
will  see  it  strangled  at  its  birth.  You  have  a  message  from 
God,  and  the  Devil  alone  can  publish  it. 

%  ««  He  4c  * 

It  is  a  fearful  thing  to  think  how  soon  one  becomes  accus- 
tomed to  everything,  even  to  things  that  appeared  but  a  while 
ago  the  most  monstrous,  impossible,  and  unendurable.  The 
loss  of  your  fortune,  of  your  beliefs,  of  your  affections,  each 
one  of  which  now  seems  to  you  to  be  eternally  bound  up  with 
the  secret  fibres  of  your  very  existence — this  will  not  bring  you 
to  an  end  of  yourself.  Far  from  it.  Each  one  of  such  capital 
losses  amounts,  after  all,  as  you  may  see  on  every  hand,  to 


FLOTSAM  AKD  JETSAM.       '  Iti) 

nothing  more  than  the  expenditure  of  a  certain  varying  amount 
of  time  in  recovering  from  it.  Never  fear  but  that  you  will 
recover.  Yet  a  day  or  two,  or  a  month,  or  a  year  or  two,  and 
these  things  shall  be  to  you  as  though  you  had  never  known 
them.  Which  also  is  another  of  the  Creator's  mercies  ;  for  it 
is  a  mercy  that  the  value  of  the  good  we  have  should  be  so  ex- 
travagantly enhanced  in  our  appreciation  while  we  possess  it, 
and  so  extravagantly  depreciated  when  we  possess  it  no  longer. 
As  we  go  on  losing  one  thing  and  gaining  another  we  can 
always  show  a  profit  on  our  balance-sheet,  since  what  we  have, 
thus  becomes  of  more  value  than  what  we  have  lost. 

The  most  damnable  of  all  the  precepts  of  wordly  wisdom  is 
that  which  teaches  us  to  accept  the  accomplished  fact.  His- 
tory, from  which  we  learn  all  we  know  of  God  and  man, 
teaches,  indeed,  and  in  the  abstract  we  will  admit,  that  all  good 
work  that  has  ever  been  done  in  the  world  has  been  done  in  re- 
sistance and  repudiation  of  the  established  fact.  Yet  now  we 
are  to  believe,  even  to  avow,  that  because  a  seed  among  the 
many  planted  has  germinated,  taken  root,  and  come  to  flourish 
as  a  green  bay-tree,  we  are  not  to  meddle  with  it  though  it  be 
the  upas  itself.  Nevertheless,  all  schools  of  thinkers  profess  to 
accept  this  :  those  who  would  change  equally  with  those  who 
would  retain.  Thus  is  violence  made  lawful,  might  accepted 
for  right,  and  the  hazard  of  success  brought  to  be  the  test  of 
truth. 

^  ^  *  'k  *  * 

The  most  irritating  people  alive  are  what  I  call  the  money- 
changers. They  have  no  wares  of  their  own  to  sell,  neither  do 
they  seek  to  buy  the  wares  of  others.  But  they  set  up  a  stall 
in  the  Temple,  where  they  will  give  you  for  your  piece  of  gold 
many  pieces  of  silver,  or  vice  versd,  and  make  a  profit  on  the 
manipulation  of  the  agio.  At  their  best  they  are  useless  to 
whomsoever  will  deal  with  them,  for  they  give  but  the  same 
purchasing  power  back  for  that  you  offer,  even  if  it  be  under  a 


180  FLOTSAM  AKB  JETSAM. 

different  symbol ;  and,  in  fact,  they  always  sweat  the  symbol 
and  leave  you  poorer,  though,  you  may  not  know  it.  You 
bring  a  fact  or  an  idea  to  such  a  one  ;  he  takes  it  and  returns 
it  to  you  in  small  change.  He  produces  no  ideas  of  his  own, 
nor  is  he  even  a  carrier  of  those  that  others  have  produced  ; 
for  he  deals  only  in  words,  which  are  the  currency  of  spiritual 
things.  Rather  than  be  plagued  with  such  parasites,  it  were, 
perhaps,  better  to  leave  words  altogether,  and  sink  to  the  level 
of  the  stars,  which  have  no  speech  nor  language,  though  their 
voice  is  heard  among  them. 

Is  it  pure  nonsense  to  say  that  I  can  make  the  bramble  an 
orange-tree  by  the  simple  process  of  tying  oranges  to  its 
branches  ?  Will  you  presume  to  say  that  you  will  likewise 
look  at  the  leaves,  that  you  will  smell  it,  that  you  will  take  and 
put  it  in  your  garden,  and  see  whether  next  year  also  it  will 
give  you  a  crop  of  like  fruit  ?  Go  to,  you  are  talking  against 
Education,  which  is  nothing  else  than  this.  Do  you,  then, 
not  know  that  the  tree  itself  is  nothing  ;  that  to  regard  its 
roots,  twigs,  leaves,  and  sap,  and  to  estimate  its  vigor,  or  ask 
what  fruit  it  will  bear  when  left  to  itself,  is  an  impertinence  ? 
There  are  the  oranges,  and  if  you  have  what  you  declare  to  be 
a  real  orange-tree,  I  will  competitively  count  the  oranges  on 
both,  and  prove  that  mine  is  the  better  of  the  two.  You  know 
that  we  require  simple  methods  in  this  world,  and  what  can  be 
more  simple  than  that  ? 

>)<  4<  *  4:  Id  4c 

Algernon  Sidney  says  that  no  man  can  think  that  to  be  true 
which  he  knows  to  be  false.  It  would  be  more  to  the  purpose 
to  say  that  no  man  can  know  that  to  be  false  which  he  thinks 
to  be  true.  For  we  so  seldom  know  anything,  and  so  com- 
monly "  think"  everything — which  means  pretending  to  know 
without  knowing — that  this  is  the  state  mainly  to  be  consid- 
ered. I  think  that  the  sun  shines,  or  that  ten  thousand  angels 
can  dance  on  the  point  of  a  needle.     But  now^  if  I  want  to 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM.  181 

know  whether  this  be  so  or  not,  I  must  leave  thinking  and  treat 
the  subject  by  a  very  different  method  of  investigation,  where- 
of the  first  condition  is  that  I  come  to  it  with  no  previous  bias. 
If  I  can  succeed  in  seeing  my  angels  dance  on  my  needle,  then 
I  know  the  fact  ;  if  I  go  out  at  noonday  and  cannot  see  the 
sun  shining,  then  I  know  either  that  he  does  not  shine,  or  that 
I  cannot  know  whether  he  does  ;  and  in  both  cases  I  arrive 
at  my  certain  conclusion  only  by  giving  up  my  uncertain 
thinking.  If  you  want  to  know  you  must  not  think,  and  if 
you  will  think  you  shall  not  know. 


CHAPTER  XLV. 

Why  is  it  that  we  can  never  really  and  thoroughly  despise 
any  but  of  our  own  age,  occupation,  sex,  standing,  and  ac- 
quaintance, and  that  we  do  really  and  thoroughly  despise  most 
of  those  ?  Can  it  be  that  it  is  because  we  know  those  alone  at 
all  thoroughly,  and  that  this  again  is  because  they  alone  are 
sufficiently  like  unto  ourselves  to  enable  us  to  know  them 
thoroughly  ?  There  may  possibly  be  somewhat  of  this  in  the 
matter.  A  younger  or  an  older  than  us,  one  of  a  different  oc- 
cupation or  sex,  of  a  higher  or  lower  position,  is  equally  beyond 
and  outside  our  view.  In  estimating  such  a  one  we  know  that 
our  estimate  cannot  be  sure,  and  we  make,  for  this,  allowances 
of  which  we  equally  know  that  they  cannot  be  of  a  surety  just 
and  no  more  ;  and  we,  therefore,  necessarily  halt  and  hesitate 
in  adopting  sure  and  decided  conclusions  as  to  their  object. 
But  give  us  one  of  ourselves,  placed  in  the  same  position,  and 
moved,  as  we  know,  by  the  same  springs — then  we  will  read- 
ily judge  him  or  her  with  precision,  for  we  fall  back  upon 
ourselves  in  case  of  doubt ;  and  so  we  end  for  these  in  con- 
tempt, as  for  the  others  we  end  in  confession  of  ignorance. 
It  seems  hard  that  we  should  be  unable  to  find  at  last  any 


1^3  FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAk. 

other  standard  than  ourselves,  yet  if  it  be  humiliating  it  is  also 
consoling  :  for  if  all  mankind  be  to  us  nothing  or  as  bad  as 
ourselves,  it  is  also  nothing  or  as  good  as  ourselves.  Which 
also  shows  one  of  the  advantages — to  put  it  in  a  profit  and  loss 
way — of  living  up  to  a  high  ideal,  that  we  thereby  raise  all  of 
mankind  that  we  can  pretend  to  know  up  to  the  same  ideal. 
And  this  is  charity,  so  far  as  it  can  be  carried  out,  to  believe 
of  others  that  they  are  as  good  as  we  may  be,  rather  than  to 
think  them  as  bad  as  we  can  be. 


What  a  fatal  thing  is  this,  that  we  seem  to  be  absolutely  in- 
capable of  appreciating  anything  in  this  world  without  at  the 
same  time  wishing  to  destroy  it  ;  nay,  that  this  is  the  only 
way  in  which  we  can  express  our  admiration,  Cleopatra 
typified  this  correctly  when  she  melted  her  most  precious  pearl 
in  the  acid  and  drank  it,  to  her  own  discomfort.  We  signify 
that  music  has  moved  us  by  repeating  it  even  upon  the  barrel- 
organ,  that  a  scent  has  charmed  us  by  dissipating  it,  that  a 
flower  has  delighted  us  by  plucking  it  to  death  and  corruption, 
that  an  idea  has  found  and  swayed  us  by  vulgarizing  it  even  to 
a  proverb,  that  a  woman  has  appeared  to  us  lovable  by  loving 
her.  And  in  each  and  every  case  the  pity  of  it  is  that  nothing 
will  satisfy  us  but  the  destruction  of  the  very  element  in  the 
thing  which  has  captured  us.  To  enjoy  is  to  sink,  burn,  and 
destroy,  we  say,  and  without  this  no  enjoyment.  Nay  we  can 
go  so  far  as  to  deny  any  excellence  that  we  cannot  thus  anni- 
hilate and  bring  to  an  end.  For  we  are,  forsooth,  practical, 
and  will  admit  nothing  out  of  which  we  can  make  no  profit 
real  or  supposed.  "  What  care  I  how  fair  she  be,  so  slie  be 
not  fair  for  me,"  we  say  and  repeat  in  every  possible  form. 
For  me  there  is  no  pearl  I  may  not  dissolve,  no  scent  I  may 
not  scatter,  no  music  I  cannot  whistle,  no  flower  I  may  not 
crush,  no  woman  I  may  not  love.  This  is  a  damnable  notion, 
yet  it  is  twisted  into  the  very  fibres  of  all  human  nature. 


FLOTSAM   AlfD   JETSAM.  183 

"The  wearer  knows  where  the  ^oe  pinqhes."  But  if  we 
were  really  reasonable  creatures,  why  should  everybody  else 
not  also  know  ?  I  tell  you  that  here  is  the  place  where  the 
pinch  is  ;  I  put  my  finger  upon  it.  But  yet  you  will  not 
believe  me.  You  will,  indeed,  receive  what  I  assert  if  it 
agrees  with  the  notion  you  have  formed  beforehand,  but  not 
otherwise  ;  which  is  to  say  that  you  will  believe  yourself  a 
little  more  if  I  corroborate  you,  but  none  the  less  if  I  do  not 
or  if  I  deny  you.  For  the  lame  man  a  flight  of  stairs  is  a 
mountain,  and  you  will  never  persuade  him  that  it  is  not  as 
high  as  the  Etna,  which  you  and  Mr.  Gladstone  have  ascended 
with  infinite  difficulty. 

li  I  had  a  son  I  would  train  him  to  ride,  to  sail  the  seas,  to 
fast,  to  think,  to  speak  the  truth,  and  to  play  tennis  ;  to 
make  love  to  women,  and  to  love  one.  To  use  tact  decently 
and  to  earn  a  livlihood  I  should  hope  he  would  learn  by  him- 
self. And  I  trust  that  Providence  will  not  deal  so  ill  by  me  as 
to  give  me  a  son  who  will  either  reach  perfection  or  fall  below 
mediocrity  in  any  one  of  these  matters.  For  in  the  former 
case  he  would  certainly  either  be  stoned  or  made  a  peer  by  his 
outraged  fellow-citizens,  while  in  the  latter  he  would  earn  my 
contempt ;  so  that  in  either  case  I,  his  aged  father,  should 
be  left  without  solace  in  my  declining  years.  What  frightens 
me  is  not  so  much  the  prospect  of  his  being  below  the  average 
in  any  one  of  the  matters  that  I  hold  to  be  important,  as  the 
extreme  facility  there  is  for  rising  above  it  to  that  relative  per- 
fection which  is  so  fatal.  Take  tennis,  for  instance.  I  have 
not  been  trying  to  play  it  for  years  without  becoming  aware 
that  it  requires  obstinate  labor,  unflagging  attention,  full  sym- 
pathy with  your  neighbor  (who,  as  ever,  is  your  adversary), 
and  the  power  of  instantly  addressing  all  the  powers  of  the 
mind  to  the  sudden  new  thing — in  fact,  that  it  demands  pre- 
cisely the  same  qualities  which  go  to  make  a  great  legislator, 
soldier,  prophet,  or  street-preacher.  Yet  those  who  most  ex- 
cel in  it  are  creatures  of  very  ordinary  ill- baked  clay,  and  T 


184  FLOTSAM   AND  JETSAM. 

believe  the  greatest  fool  I  know  could  in  his  own  court  give 
me  thirty  and  a  bisque  and  beat  me  easily.  I  could,  perhaps, 
give  him  equal  odds  with  the  same  result  in  others  of  these 
matters,  and  that  would  equally  disconcert  and  exercise  him, 
for  from  the  tennis  point  of  view  /  am  the  greatest  fool  he 
knows.  Which  shows  that  it  is  easy  for  well-nigh  anybody  to 
attain  relative  excellence  in  well-nigh  everything,  which,  again, 
must  lead  each  of  us  who  have  not  attained  it  in  any,  to  be 
thankful  for  these  and  all  other  mercies. 


CHAPTER  XLVI. 

On   Board  the   Billt  Babt, 

FiSHERGATE,    11th  JuUC. 

Ah  !  this  is  real  pleasure  to  be  once  more  on  the  Billy 
Baby,  master  of  oneself  and  of  all  around  one.  A  little  king- 
dom, indeed,  which  requires  care  lest  one  should  knock  one's 
head  or  one's  shins  against  its  strait  boundaries,  one  in  which 
a  tall  man  or  a  fat  man  might  find  himself  ill  at  ease — but  all 
my  own,  and  therefore  to  me  delightful  beyond  all  others. 
Merely  to  be  here  is  a  pleasure  to  me,  and  one  which  has  this 
inestimable  and  quite  exceptional  advantage,  that  I  can  enjoy  it 
now  without  having  to  wait  till  it  has  faded  into  the  past,  and 
therefrom  received  that  nameless  charm  attaching  to  all  that 
I  shall  never  have  or  all  that  I  have  no  longer.  We  have 
scrubbed  our  bottom,  got  a  new  storm -jib  and  topmast  (the 
late  defunct  being  sprung,  and  therefore  condemned),  Ned 
has  grappled  with  the  science  of  navigation  during  the  win- 
ter so  far  as  to  learn  to  do  a  "  day's  work,"  and  altogether 
we  are  as  handsome  as  paint  and  varnish  can  make  us. 
Bill,  indeed,  the  faithful  and  perspiring  Bill,  has  gone  to 
Iceland,  and  Tom  is  fishing  somewhere  in  the  North  Sea, 
which  is  a  source  of  deep  sorrow  to  me  ;  but  we  have  shipped 


FLOTSAM   AKD   JETSAM.  185 

two  new  hands  to  make  up  our  ship's  complement  of  four,  and 
the  only  present  trouble  is  that  it  has  come  on  to  blow  three 
parts  of  a  gale  of  wind  from  the  westward,  which,  of  course, 
is  precisely  the  one  point  of  the  compass  to  which  I  wish  to 
go.  But  then,  how  pleasant  to  hear  the  wind  blustering  and 
to  know  that  one  is  in  a  safe  snug  place  ! 

>|!  4c  «  *  1)1  * 

12th  June. 
I  have  come  to  trouble  already.  Phil,  my  new  butler, 
lady's-maid,  valet,  cook,  and  footman — (vice  Bill,  promoted 
to  Iceland) — has  been  acting  according  to  his  lights.  I 
brought  down  with  me  a  supply  of  that  especial  coffee  which 
is  my  only  claim  to  distinction.  It  was  newly-roasted,  and  I 
told  him  to  grind  as  much  as  he  wanted  from  time  to  time. 
Fancy,  then,  my  horror  at  finding  that  he  had  spent  the  after- 
noon in  grinding  the  whole  of  it,  thereby  violating  one  of  the 
fundamental  principles  of  coffee-making.  Also,  he  has  peeled 
the  new  potatoes,  washed  the  keys  of  the  piano,  and  destroyed 
my  boots  by  putting  them  before  the  fire  to  dry  till  a  cinder 
fell  through  their  "  uppers. "  Phil  clearly  has  never  set  him- 
self to  consider  the  original  principles  of  things.  In  addition 
to  which,  it  is  still  blowing  a  gale  of  wind,  and  I  can't  get  out. 
****** 

From  all  time  men  have  professed  to  be  philosophers  with- 
out being  scientific,  to  love  knowledge  without  having  it,  to 
seek  the  final  causes  of  things  without  paying  heed  to  the 
things  themselves,  to  reason  on  facts  without  possessing  them  ; 
and  when  Comte  first  laid  it  down  as  the  essential  principle  of 
his  new  Positive  Philosophy  that  no  reality  can  be  established 
by  reason  alone,  he  was  nearly  starved  to  death  for  his  pre- 
sumption. His  system,  indeed,  demands  so  much  hard  work, 
even  to  comprehend  it,  that  if  once  it  were  generally  accepted 
we  should  have  to  admit  the  impossibility  of  there  being  more 
than  a  very  few  philosophers  in  the  world,  or  at  least  the  im- 
possibility of  our  all  being  philosophers  who  are  most  of  us 


186  FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM. 

very  ignorant — which  is  revolting.  Comte  is  consequently 
clearly  wrong,  and  I  only  await  a  successful  voyage  by  a  cap- 
tain who  shall  go  to  sea  provided  with  much  navigation  and  no 
seamanship,  to  conclude  that  he  is  an  impertinent  babbler. 


The  living  prophet  is  always  as  sure  to  be  stoned  as  the  dead 
prophet  is  to  be  worshipped.  Unless,  indeed,  like  Galileo,  he 
will  solemnly  recant  his  prophecy,  and  leave  men  to  find  out 
with  time  that  his  recantation  was  a  lie  which  he  knew  to  be  a 
lie.  So  true  is  this,  that  whenever  I  see  a  man  stoned  I  am 
always  inclined  to  believe  that  he  is  a  prophet  without  further 
evidence.  Then  comes  the  question  :  is  it  worth  while  to  be 
stoned  in  this  life,  in  order,  if  it  be  so,  that  one  may  look  down 
from  the  next  and  find  oneself  libellously  stuck  up  in  the  street 
as  a  statue  and  one's  name  vulgarized  into  every  class-book  ? 
Fontenelle  thought  not.  **  He  that  has  his  hand  full  of 
truths,"  said  he,  "should  close  it  fast."  Fontenelle  was 
right  in  his  generation.  You  may  not  say  the  new  and  true 
thing,  but  any  man  may  say  either  the  new  thing  that  is  not  true 
or  the  true  thing  that  is  not  new.  Surely  that  is  enough  for 
glory. 

The  most  hateful  of  all  the  Philistines  who  believe  and 
would  have  us  believe  that  the  Promised  Land  is  theirs  and  not 
ours,  because  forsooth  they  were  born  and  live  in  it  and  have 
the  present  possession  of  its  fruits,  is  your  truly  practical  man. 
He  blasphemes  "  vaih  theories"  because  they  give  no  present 
practical  results,  not  seeing  and,  indeed,  not  knowing  that  all 
present  practical  results  have  been  reached  by  and  through 
theories  which  appeared  to  be,  when  they  were  first  conceived, 
equally  unfruitful  with  those  he  denounces  and  despises.  He 
would  have  laughed,  even  though  he  live  by  farming  or  on  the 
rents  of  farmers,  at  Abel  when  he  first  conceived  the  theory 
that  com  could  be  reproduced  by  putting  a  portion  of  it  into 
the  earth  ;  he  will  laugh  to  this  day  at  Archimedes  and  Apol- 


FLOTSAM   AND  JETSAM.  187 

lonius  theorizing  on  conic  sections,  even  though  his  merchan- 
dise or  his  life  has  been  saved  by  an  observation  of  longitude. 
He  is  an  ass. 

Yet  this  is  not  to  say  that  the  practical  man  has  not  his  uses. 
On  the  contrary,  he  is  very  valuable,  though  otherwise  than  as 
he  thinks — namely,  in  discovering  the  errors  of  the  practice  in 
which  he  believes,  caused  by  divergence  from  the  theory  in 
which  he  does  not  believe.  "When  the  observation  has  been 
taken  and  worked  out,  showing  exactly  where  the  ship  is  and 
that  she  is  running  her  true  course,  he  shall  be  put  in  the 
chains  with  the  lead  or  in  the  bows  as  a  look-out,  and  shall 
discover  that  in  spite  of  the  perfection  of  the  method  of  calcu- 
lation she  is  running  into  land  which,  according  to  that  calcu- 
lation, should  be  leagues  away.  Having  done  this  he  will  cry 
out  upon  the  theory — still  not  seeing  that  it  was  the  practice 
which  was  in  fault. 


CHAPTER  XLVn. 

On  Board  the  Billy  Babt, 

Selsea  Bill,  19th  June. 
It  is  a  great  luxury  to  love  an  ugly  woman,  because  every 
time  you  see  or  hear  of  her  ugliness  you  are  reminded  of  that 
superior  perception  which  to  you  alone  of  all  men  has  been 
given  of  knowing  that  she  is  not  ugly  ;  in  fact,  you  love  her  as 
most  men  love  a  woman,  because  you  think  you  know  her 
better  than  others.  But  there  is,  perhaps,  even  a  greater  lux- 
ury than  this — which  is  to  love  a  woman  you  don't  know,  that 
is  to  say  one  whom  you  see  but  with  whom  you  are  not  ac- 
quainted. For  this  also  rests  upon  the  notion  that  you  do 
know  her,  that  you  have  been  able  to  divine  her  from  that  you 
have  seen  of  her,  and  this,  being  apparently  even  more  diffi- 
cult than  to  divine  one  with  whom  you  are  acquainted,  is  also 
more  flattering  to  you.     It  is  not  only  in  fairy  tales  that  men 


188  FLOTSAM   AND  JETSAM. 

do  this  kind  of  thing.  I,  who  write  this,  love  desperately  a 
woman  with  whom  I  have  never  spoken,  and  who  is  not  even 
aware  of  my  existence.  Her  face,  not  regularly  beautiful,  her 
figure  marked  by  what  others  would  think  striking  defects, 
her  smile,  her  wealth  of  gesture,  and  the  lighting  up  of  her 
eye,  have  been  to  me  as  arrow-headed  inscriptions,  which  I 
alone  can  read  and  in  which  I  read  all  that  which  I  would  have 
created  for  myself.  I  am  warranted,  therefore,  in  saying  that 
I  love  her.  But  God  forbid  I  should  ever  know  her,  for  I 
might  have  to  demolish  all  my  card-castles,  unlearn  my  arrow- 
heads, and  be  forced,  perhaps,  to  read  in  their  place  some  very 
ordinary  inscriptions  in  very  common  characters  on  very  perish- 
able tablets.  And  I  would  not  be  robbed  of  my  fairy-tale  in 
this  world,  which  has  so  few. 


CowKS,  20th  June. 
"Great  caution,"  say  the  sailing  directions,  "is  requisite 
not  to  be  caught  in  the  Looe  by  night,  neither  should  a  sailing 
vessel  attempt  it  with  an  adverse  tide  ;"  but  to  be  a  little  "  ac- 
quainted" is  better  than  many  sailing  directions,  and  if  you 
can't  get  a  fair  tide  and  daylight  too,  you  may  perhaps  manage 
with  the  tide  alone.  After  thrashing  up  to  windward  all  day, 
and  feeling  the  strong  spring  flood  beginning  to  make,  I  ran 
into  the  Park,  and  there  anchored  just  as  it  got  dark,  thinking 
to  stop  a  tide  and  go  through  with  the  first  light  with  the  last 
half  of  the  ebb.  It  was  a  beautiful  night,  with  every  appear- 
ance of  fine  weather,  and  I  turned  in  till  the  morning  should 
come.  But  at  one  o'clock  Ned  called  me  with  the  news  that 
the  wind  had  backed  to  W.S.W.,  with  thick  rain,  and  that  it 
"looked  like  dirt."  So,  indeed,  it  did,  and,  moreover,  the 
glass  had  fallen  considerably.  I  thought,  therefore,  that  I  had 
best  get  out  of  that  and  see  if  I  couldn't  blunder  through  the 
darkness,  which  was  as  yet  unredeemed.  And  now  came  the 
Nemesis  of  a  piece  of  carelessness  of  which,  seduced  by  the 
weather  (alas  !  for  the  instability^  of  wonien  and  weather),  J 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM.  189 

had  been  guilty  in  not  getting  a  bearing  of  the  Mixon,  as  I 
might  have  done  before  dark  ;  the  result  of  which  was  that  I 
had  only  the  Owers  Light,  half  obscured  by  the  rain,  to  work 
by.  In  the  dilemma  I  stood  boldly  in  toward  the  Mixon 
under  the  protection  of  my  lead,  and  by  then  I  struck  two 
fathoms,  made  the  beacon  within  a  quarter  of  a  mile.  I  then 
gave  her  a  cast  off,  and  judging  my  distance,  after  a  while, 
having  then,  of  course,  lost  the  Mixon  again  and  the  light  too, 
made  a  couple  of  short  boards,  and  went  for  the  Pullar  Buoy, 
which  I  had  the  luck  almost  to  run  into  before  we  saw  it. 
Thenceforth  our  business  was,  of  course,  easy  enough,  and  we 
weTre  not  long  in  finding  ourselves  at  anchor  here.  Moral : 
Always  take  every  bearing  you  can  get. 

I  once  knew  one  of  the  greatest  heiresses  in  London  who 
used  to  sing  with  great  feeling  a  ballad  which  turned  entirely 
upon  the  difficulty  some  Scotchman  had  (an  especial  Scotch- 
man must  he  have  been)  in  making  a  crown  into  a  pound.  This, 
with  other  things,  has  led  me  to  ask  whether  to  have  great 
riches  is  after  all  the  ideal  state,  even  of  those  who  are  work- 
ing the  hardest  for  them  or  who  possess  them  most  completely 
— nay,  whether  it  is  the  ideal  state  of  any  man  or  woman. 
And  it  seems  to  me  that  the  negative  is  proved  by  this  sole 
fact,  that  the  poetry — or,  in  other  words,  the  sense  of  that 
ideal — which  we  all  have  in  us  can  find  no  food  in  riches,  nor 
even  in  that  which  riches  can  buy.  The  man  of  ten  thousand 
a  year  is  no  poetic  hero,  unless  by  ingenuity  he  be  made  poor 
in  spite  of  his  ten  thousands  ;  his  houses,  his  furniture,  his 
horses,  his  purple  and  fine  linen  will  none  of  them  provoke  a 
song  ;  and  if  he  wants  one,  he  must  go  to  such  common  and 
inferior  states  of  life  as  he  will  find  among  the  creatures  he 
possesses  in  fee — to  shepherds  and  sailors,  to  the  afflicted,  the 
disappointed,  the  poor  ;  to  all  those  whose  lot  has  been  cast  in 
those  crooked,  unhappy  ways  which  he  knows  not  unless  by 
hearsay.  Yet  to  hear  and  to  think  he  can  comprehend  the 
poetry  that  fastens  upon  them  is  still  even  his  highest  enjoy- 


190  FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM. 

ment.  So  that  when  we  have  worked  all  the  day  for  money, 
ease,  secnrity,  and  troops  of  friends,  the  best  we  can  get  out 
of  them  is  the  ability  to  take  refuge  with  poverty,  hardship, 
danger,  and  solitude.     This  is  human  nature. 


CHAPTER  XLVm. 

The  eternal  history  of  this  world  is  well  told  in  the  Neapoli- 
tan tale  of  the  priest  who  went  to  dine  with  a  fellow  padre,  as 
great  a  bon  vivant  as  himself.  The  two  ate  and  drank,  till  he 
who  was  invited  scarcely  felt  able  to  walk  back  to  his  domicile. 
As  he  was  waddling  painfully  along  a  beggar  addressed  him, 
saying,  in  piteous  accents,  "  For  the  love  of  the  Holy  Virgin, 
give  me  something — I  am  dying  of  hunger  !"  '*  Dying  of 
hunger  !"  exclaimed  the  overladen  monk  ;  *'  dying  of  hunger  ! 
Happy  man  !  I  am  bursting  with  having  eaten  too  much. 
Thank  God,  and  go  thy  ways." 

Now,  if  the  two  monks  had  invited  the  beggar  to  dine  with 

them,  all  three  would  have  been  better  off.     But  there  is  still 

wanting  the  moralist  or  the  legislator  capable  of  persuading  one 

man  not  to  eat  too  much,  in  order  that  another  may  eat  enough. 

i- »        *  *  *  *  *  * 

It  is  strange  enough  that  while  we  are  always  doing  what  we 
can  to  conceal  ourselves  from  our  fellows,  we  are  also  always 
complaining  that  they  do  not  know  us.  Yet  all  the  time  the  real 
fact  is  that  we  are  trying  to  cheat  them  into  knowing  the  best 
part  of  us  only,  and  that  they,  seeing  through  the  deception, 
avert  their  eyes  from  the  good  we  would  present,  and  imagine 
with  exaggeration  the  evil  we  would  conceal.  And  if  one 
would  really  be  honest,  he  commonly  can  think  of  no  other 
course  than  that  of  obtruding  the  evil  and  concealing  the  good 
— a  kind  of  proceeding  which  is  not  without  example,  though 
indeed  it  is  rare.     But  if  any  should  be  so  ill-advised  as  to 


FLOTSAM  AKD  JETSAM.  191 

present  himself  as  lie  is,  and  should  give  to  the  world  that 
strange  mixture  of  good  and  evil  which  each  of  us  knows  him- 
self to  he — if  any  should  do  this,  he  would  be  disbelieved  as  a 
liar,  and  also  scouted  as  a  hypocrite.  No  man,  it  would  at 
once  be  said,  was  ever  either  so  bad  or  so  good  as  this.  And 
so  we  all  go  on  deceiving  others,  and  at  last  ourselves,  into  the 
belief  that  we  live  in  a  world  composed  of  creatures  entirely 
different  from  those  which  really  inhabit  it.  This  is  the  result 
of  that  faculty  of  introspection  which  we  are  told  alone  dis- 
tinguishes us  from  the  brutes. 

The  man  who  said  he  could  prove  anything  by  figures  only 
asserted  that  he  and  his  fellows  were  a  set  of  fools.  And  it  is 
really  irritating  to  see  how  many  are  utterly  unaware  of  the 
difference  between  the  precision  of  a  statement  and  its  cer- 
tainty. A  "  circumstantial  account, "  a  "  detailed  statement," 
or  a  '*  complete  exemplification,"  is  held  to  be  true  in  its  nat- 
ure, because  it  is  circumstantial,  detailed,  or  complete.  Yet  a 
precise  statement  may  be  as  certainly  false  as  a  vague  one  may 
be  certainly  true.  When  I  say  "  the  moon  is  made  of  green 
cheese,"  that  is  thoroughly  precise,  but  also  thoroughly  false, 
and  when  I  say  "  all  men  must  die,"  that  is  thoroughly  un- 
precise  but  as  thoroughly  certain.  And  it  follows  that,  state- 
ment for  statement,  the  second  is  worth  more  than  the  first. 
But  now  if  I  say  "  the  moon  must  die,"  that  is  both  unprecise 
and  uncertain,  and  therefore  a  purely  idle  assertion.  Yet  this 
is  the  character  of  ninety-nine  out  of  every  hundred  assertions 
that  are  made  verbally  and  in  print. 

Just  as  anybody  can  get  anything  he  wants  except  the  one 
only  thing  he  really  does  want,  or  do  anything  he  pleases  ex- 
cept the  one  only  thing  he  really  desires  to  do,  so  anybody  can 
say  anything  except  the  one  only  thing  he  wishes  to  say.  Put 
a  man  before  the  maid  he  courts,  let  him  be  sincere  as  the 
morning  light,  and  then  for  the  first  time  he  shall  hesitate, 


192  FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM. 

stammer,  be  cold  and  unimpressive,  and  leave  her  at  last  with 
the  conviction,  necessarily  formed  from  his  conduct,  that  he  is 
a  blunderer  or  a  liar,  or  both.  And  yet  if  he  is  acting  a  part, 
how  glibly  and  admirably  it  all  runs  !  I  think  no  man  was 
every  deeply  moved,  and  deeply  anxious  to  communicate  his 
emotion,  but  must  have  thought  with  humiliation,  as  I  have 
done,  of  the  Gymnase,  where  the  right  words  adequate  to  the 
situation  flow  so  surely  and  so  truly — or  rather,  as  it  would 
seem  from  all  experience,  so  untruly.  It  is  a  consolation  to 
me  to  remember  that  I  have  seen  one  of  the  greatest  of  actors 
as  much  at  fault  as  ever  I  was  myself,  when  he  was  set  to  speak 
his  own  feelings  in  a  simple  matter.  For  in  this  also  it  is  true, 
as  iu  the  rest,  that  we  can  act  another  man,  but  never  ourselves. 


CHAPTER  XLIX. 

It  seems  to  me  often  that  it  is  an  immense  impertinence  to 
utter  one's  thoughts.  For,  after  all,  they  are  and  can  be  only 
such  thoughts  as  all  men  have,  who  only  differ  from  the  speaker 
and  the  writer  in  that  they  do  not  utter  them.  But  then  I 
console  myself  with  this  reflection,  that  the  very  utterance 
forces  one  to  look  one's  thought  in  the  face,  to  ascertain  it 
more  or  less,  and  to  make  out  to  some  extent  what  it  really  is. 
In  fact,  it  is  the  having  done  this  which  alone  gives  a  thought 
any  proper  existence.  For  although  we  all  of  us  when  we  look 
up  into  our  sky  are  dimly  aware  of  great  flights  of  them  that 
come  and  go,  passing  for  a  moment  and  disappearing  at  once, 
there  are  but  few  who  will  take  the  trouble  to  lay  snares  for 
any  one  of  them,  to  catch  it,  look  at  it,  hear  it  sing  for  a 
moment,  and  then  set  it  free  again.  And  when  a  rare  fowler 
comes  and  shows  us  his  bird,  that  he  has  caught  and  caged  so 
well  that  all  men  to  all  time  may  delight  in  it,  a  great  part  of 
our  delight  arises  from  the  recognition  of  the  fact  that  it  is  our 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM.  193 

bird  also  that  we  miglit  have  caught  had  we  taken  the  same 

trouble. 

****** 

They  are  admirable  persons  indeed  who  can  chirrup  all  day 
and  never  tire  of  it,  or  ever  have  any  uncomfortable  suspicion 
that  that  is  not  a  sufficient  occupation  and  end  of  their  exist- 
ence. For,  doubtless,  the  great  object  of  life  is  to  satisfy  one's 
own  self  with  it,  and,  this  being  so,  they  are  the  wisest  who 
can  effect  it  at  the  least  expenditure  of  trouble.  But  how 
much  are  they  to  be  envied  who  can  not  only  satisfy  themselves 
with  their  own  chirruping,  but  also  be  satisfied  with  the  chirrup- 
ing of  others  ! — who  never  feel  the  longing  to  heaar  other 
sounds  than  this,  or  even  rather  than  this  to  hear  no  sound  at 
all.  "  The  grasshopper  shall  be  a  burden,"  said  the  preacher, 
but  if  you  can  arrive  at  such  a  blessed  state  as  not  to  feel  the 
weariness  and  weight  of  that  burden,  nothing  need  trouble  you. 

Well,  now,  why  am  I  to  obey  your  laws  ?  You  will  not  say 
because  you  have  courts  and  policemen,  and,  if  need  be,  war 
and  armies  to  enforce  them  ;  for  if  force  is  your  only  sanction 
fraud  will  be  my  just  defence  :  you  cannot  say  because  you 
have  chosen  to  make  those  laws,  knowing  them  best  for  us  all, 
but  especially  for  me  ;  for  that  is  the  very  point  at  which  we 
are  fighting.  No,  at  last  you  must  say  that  it  is  because  the 
laws  I  am  to  obey  are  the  expression  of  the  Law  which  is  in- 
scribed in  the  ineffaceable  records  of  the  universe  itself,  where 
all  men  may  read  it,  and  see  that  you  have  but  declared  and  not 
made  it.  And  if  it  be  so  I  have  no  answer  to  you.  But  now 
if  the  Law  of  God  and  of  Nature  be  found  at  variance  with  the 
laws,  so  called,  by  which  you  profess  to  declare  it,  I  who  re- 
ject them  am  no  law-breaker,  but  only  you  who  assert  them. 


194  FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM. 


CHAPTER  L. 


This  instrament  of  language  of  which  we  are  so  proud  has 
been  the  especial  care  of  mankind  since  the  world  began. 
Pulled  to  pieces  many  times,  and  immediately  reconstructed 
electrically  out  of  the  fragments  ;  added  to,  and  thereby,  as 
is  thought,  improved  by  every  generation,  and  almost  by  every 
man  who  uses  it  ;  modelled  upon  various  patterns,  yet  always 
with  the  same  object  of  making  it  a  perfect  vehicle  for  the 
transmission  of  every  thought  the  human  mind  can  conceive, 
it  should  be  now,  if  ever  it  is  to  be,  near  to  accomplishing  that 
purpose.  Yet  with  all  its  appliances,  it  is  still  very  rarely  ca- 
pable of  more  than  the  presentation  of  those  purely  elementary 
ideas,  the  necessity  of  imparting  which  first  gave  it  birth. 
Beyond  this  it  is  always  vague  and  uncertain,  and  usually  quite 
inoperative.  ' '  I  love  you — I  hate  y  ou — yes — no — come — go, ' ' 
are  nearly  the  limits  of  any  common  vocabulary,  and  he  who 
goes  beyond  this  does  but  launch  a  word-cloud  which  looks 
differently  from  every  different  man's  position  who  views  it, 
and  which  differs  in  fact  with  every  breath  of  wind.  Well, 
then,  here  is  my  dog,  who,  though  a  very  imperfect  linguist, 
understands  these  elementary  assertions  as  well  as  any  of  us. 
For  she  pays  attention,  which  most  of  us  never  do  to  our  fel- 
lows, and  I  see  that  she  reads  the  tones  of  my  voice,  to  this 
extent,  as  plainly  as  any  professor  of  English  could  read  my 
words.  Wherefore  I  say  that  in  fact  she  understands  what  I 
say  as  well  as  the  professor,  since,  try  as  I  will,  I  can  say  no 
more  to  him  than  I  can  to  her.  For  she,  too,  can  and  does 
measure  very  justly  the  degree  of  emphasis  I  put  into  each  ex- 
pression, and  can  and  does  judge  therefrom  how  far  I  am  sin- 
cere in  it.  For  which,  with  other  reasons,  I  judge  that  it 
matters  less  what  we  say  than  how  we  say  it.  And  this  brings 
me  to  my  point,  almost  as  tardily  as  Mr.  Gladstone — which 
point  is  this,  that  of  all  the  gifts  Providence  can  bestow  there 
is  none  anything  like  so  valuable  as  a  good  speaking  voice, 


FLOTSAM  AISTD  JETSAM.  195 

that  is  to  say  a  sympathetic  voice.  Power  of  conception, 
depth  of  learning,  force  and  aptitude  of  expression,  are  nothing 
in  comparison  with  the  faculty  of  uttering  words  in  such  a 
way  as  that  the  sound  of  them  is  caressing  to  all  ears.  The 
sense  of  them  liiatters  nothing  in  comparison  with  this. 


If  you  would  know  a  man  you  must  do  business  with  him  ; 
if  you  would  know  a  woman  you  must  make  love  to  her.  Thus 
alone  can  you  discover  the  evil  and  the  good  that  is  in  them, 
for  thus  alone  do  you  meet  them  on  the  only  ground  to  which 
they  attach  any  importance.  The  worst  part  of  the  nature  of 
each,  now,  is  shown  certainly  and  without  the  possibility  of  con- 
cealment, self  now  rises  up  in  arms  and  asserts  its  supremacy 
over  all  else  ;  and  if,  in  spite  of  all,  you  find  a  man  who  is 
generous  in  business  or  a  woman  who  is  faithful  in  love,  set 
them  as  jewels  in  your  heart  of  hearts,  for  they  are  rare  indeed. 


CHAPTER  LI. 

On  Board  the  Billy  Baby, 

25th  July. 

That  anarchical  order  of  French  ideas,  such  as  **  all  opinions 
are  free,"  "  all  tastes  are  in  nature,"  and  the  rest,  are  to  me 
utterly  detestable.  I  so  little  admit  all  opinions  that  I  deny 
that  there  can  be  so  many  as  two.  There  may,  indeed,  be  two 
or  many  degrees  of  knowledge,  two  or  many  degrees  of  atten- 
tion ;  but  with  due  knowledge  and  due  attention  there  can 
only  be  one  conclusion.  As  for  those  who  have  not  due 
knowledge  of  the  matter  or  have  not  given  due  attention  to  it, 
they  have  no  right  to  be  heard  at  all  upon  it,  and  it  is  not  true 
that  they  are  entitled  to  their  opinion.  All  they  are  entitled 
to  is  compassion  and  instruction.     But    then  this  condemns 


196  FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM. 

well-nigh  all  mankind  to  silence.     Why,  yes,  of  course,  have 
you  not  yet  discovered  that  that  is  their  proper  vocation  ? 

The  man  who  can  pass  a  veterinary  examination  is  king  of 
all  men.  What  does  it  matter  to  him  that  others  have  money, 
names,  baubles  without  end,  if  they  have  not  the  sound  body 
which  he  feels  himself  ?  He  would  not  change  with  one  of 
them.  He  feels  vigor  and  readiness  in  every  part  of  him. 
There  is  nothing  he  would  not  undertake — few,  if  any,  things 
in  which  he  would  not  succeed  ;  he  rejoices  as  a  giant  to  run 
his  race.  With  this  kind,  of  bounding  exuberant  health  life  is 
worth  having  with  all  its  miseries,  without  it  life  is  a  burden 
with  all  its  delights. 

****** 

Southampton,  July  26th. 
These  human  companions  of  ours  on  the  earth  never  look  so 
intensely  vulgar  and  abominable  as  when  they  put  on  their 
holiday  attire.  Here  is  this  town,  which  is  endurable  enough, 
and  which  I  have  seen  look  more  beautiful  than  Venice,  in  that 
delicious  moment  when  the  sun  has  just  set,  and  has  left  to  all 
things  the  so  precious  and  so  short  a  legacy  of  rich  white  light 
which  brings  all  out  in  deep  strong  coloring — here  it  is  decked 
with  flags,  hideous  with  blatant  bands,  peopled  no  longer  with 
decent  work-day  people,  respectable  with  evidence  of  labor, 
and  smug  citizens  hurrying  to  effect  a  job,  but  with  hideous  at- 
tempts at  fine  feathers  which  would  make  the  angels  weep. 
And  all  this  disfigurement  takes  place  because,  forsooth,  the 
town  and  the  people  have  determined  to  appear  at  their  best, 
and  have  put  on  their  finery  to  do  honor  to  their  regatta. 
Poor  creatures,  they  are  no  worse  in  this  than  the  rest  of  us. 
Like  the  rest  of  us  they  are  utterly  unaware,  when  it  comes  to 
the  point,  that  all  they  have  at  all  admirable  about  them  is  pre- 
cisely that  which  they  most  seek  to  forget  and  to  conceal.  It 
takes  a  lifetime  to  learn  not  to  be  ridiculous,  in  anything 
beyond  the  earning  one's  bread  by  the  sweat  of  the  brow,  and 


FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM.  197 

there  are  few  indeed  of  whatever  degree  who  are  not  at  once 
ludicrous  and  odious  when  they  set  out  with  malice  prepense  to 
be  splendid. 

I  thank  God  I  have  never  acted  purely  upon  reason  but  once, 
which  once  has  endowed  me  with  never-dying  repentance  ; 
neither  have  I  many  times  attained  to  the  height  of  laying 
down  a  principle  and  following  it  out  consistently,  for  which, 
however,  I  do  not  thank  God.  On  the  contrary,  I  am  aware, 
when  I  look  back  over  that  waste  of  blunders  and  disappoint- 
ments which  one  calls  one's  life,  that  I  could  not  give  a  satisfy- 
ing account  of  the  motives  for  any  one  of  my  acts,  to  any  creat- 
ure not  prepared  to  admit  himself  as  great  a  fool  as  myself. 
The  greatest  efforts,  of  all  those  very  little  ones  I  have  made, 
have  had  their  origin  in  fancy,  in  sentiment,  or  even  in  mere 
perverseness  ;  my  greatest  failures  have  been  undeserved,  my 
greatest  successes  unmerited.  I  find  that  neither  my  reason 
nor  my  convictions  will  ever  explain  my  conduct,  and  I  per- 
force conclude  that  they,  therefore,  have  never  suggested  it. 
Yet  I  find,  also,  that  I  am  quite  ready,  even  with  myself,  to 
wrench  reason  and  conviction  to  my  conduct  as  though  they 
had  suggested  it.  I  wonder  if  many  other  men  are  as  great 
impostors  as  I. 


CHAPTER  LII. 

Trouville,  28th  July. 
UiTLKSs  one  were  a  German,  divided  from  them  only  by  an 
imaginary  line  of  frontier  ^nd  a  real  gulf  of  mutual  injuries,  it 
would  be  impossible  to  resist  these  Frenchmen.  Having  been 
on  deck  all  last  night,  and  fed  all  yesterday  by  Phil,  I  desired 
nothing  else  to-day  than  to  have  a  little  diner  fin  and  to  turn  in 
early,  for  such  are  the  blessed  limits  of  his  aspirations  who  is 
tired  and  hungry.     The  dinner,  however,  ordered  at  a  famous 


198  FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM. 

restaurant,  did  not  arrive  at  the  hour  fixed,  nor  an  hour  later, 
upon  which  I  sat  down  in  a  shocking  temper  to  more  of  Phil's 
barbarous  gastronomy,  I  had  half  eaten  this  when  there  ar- 
rived a  pert,  active,  sparrow-lie  waiter,  looking  like  Capoul  in 
one  of  his  most  highly-curled  parts,  and  bearing  the  diner  Jin. 
He  stepped  on  board,  cast  a  pitying  glance  at  the  untutored 
heaps  of  plates  and  forks  which  constitute  Phil's  notion  of  a 
dinner-table,  revolutionized  it  into  order  in  the  twinkling  of  an 
eye,  praised  the  ship  as  being  "  ^eniiZ, "  spread  the  dinner 
before  my  soured  gaze,  with  a  particular  account  of  the  excel- 
lence of  each  dish,  finally  persuaded  me  to  eat  it  at  this  twelfth 
hour,  and  left  me  with  the  conviction  that  I  was  most  unrea- 
sonable not  to  have  waited  his  leisure. 


At  Sea,  Sunday,  August  1st. 
"  With  lead  and  look-out  no  ship  can  be  lost"  is  a  sailoriz- 
ing  saw  which  means  much  more  than  it  says.  Especially  I 
take  it  to  mean  that  no  science,  however  complete,  and  no 
methods  of  calculation,  however  perfect,  can  replace  and 
obviate  the  necessity  for  constant  appeal  to  the  elementary, 
stupid  information  of  the  despised  senses,  and  that  these  must 
be  kept  constantly  on  guard  over  all  conclusions  arrived  at,  by 
means  more  complicated  than  their  own  direct  action.  This  is 
opposed  to  the  notions  now  fashionable,  which,  nevertheless, 
do  daily  supply  the  proof  that  it  is  true.  In  navigation  this  is 
written  so  that  they  who  run  may  read.  "VMien  Magellan  un- 
dertook to  sail  round  the  world,  the  navigators,  we  are  told  by 
the  men  of  science  who  went  with  him,  "  content  themselves 
with  knowing  the  latitude,  and  are  so  proud  that  they  will  not 
hear  speak  of  longitude, ' '  and  even  ^the  latitude  was  calculated 
upon  the  very  rough  observations  made  with  the  astrolabe.  In 
these  days  we  have  the  nicest  instruments  and  the  most 
varied  and  complete  means  of  ascertaining  the  ship's  place 
on  the  chart,  while  the  charts  themselves  are  well-nigh  as 
complete  as  it  is  possible  to   make  them.     And  the   result 


FLOTSAM   AND  JETSAM.  199 

of  it  all  is,  that  the  very  perfection  of  instruments  and  meth- 
ods has  become  a  new  danger,  for  it  induces  and  persuades 
the  navigator  to  content  himself  with  their  results,  and  to  neg- 
lect and  despise,  or  even  to  disbelieve,  the  evidence  of  his 
senses.  Many  a  vessel  has  been  lost  through  reliance  on  cal- 
culations, which  would  have  been  safe  had  she  had  nothing  else 
to  trust  to  than  lead  and  look-out. 

«  4c  *  *  4c  * 

1st  August. 
Phil  is  really  admirable.  He  will  not,  indeed,  ever  turn  out 
the  great  chef  that  I  made  of  Bill — I  don't  think  he  will  ever 
achieve  those  four  dishes  which  Bill  learned  to  cook  so  well, 
because  so  conscientiously  and  carefully,  in  the  course  of  six 
months — but  he  has  strokes  of  genius  which  surprise  one  into 
admiration.  When  I  first  came  down  from  town,  laden  with 
the  spoils  of  Covent  Garden,  he  came  to  me  with  a  pine-apple, 
on  which  I  had  expended  all  my  substance,  and  asked  me, 
**  how  he  was  to  cook  this  here  thing."  To-day  he  has  done 
better,  for  I  had  confided  to  him  an  artichoke,  which  I  love 
mainly  because  it  seems  to  me  so  well  to  represent  the  history 
of  all  our  desires  and  ambitions — ^that  is  to  say,  that  it  amuses 
you  immensely  as  long  as  you  are  slowly  pulling  its  leaves  and 
getting  a  very  little  out  of  each,  and  only  begins  to  bore  you 
when  you  come  to  the  heart,  which  is  all  eating  and  no  picking. 
Well,  Phil  has  simplified  the  matter  by  simply  picking  all  the 
leaves  himself  and  heaving  them  overboard,  leaving  me  nothing 
but  this  realized  asset  of  a  heart  ! 


CHAPTER  LHI. 

On  Board  the  Billy  Babt, 

August  8. 
The  fearful  and  tremendous  fact  is  that  there  are  twenty - 
four  hours  in  the  day,  which,  after  deducting  the  sweet  eight 


200  FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM. 

of  sleep,  have  to  be  filled  up  somehow.  Who  is  there,  not 
being  one  of  those  thrust  into  the  groove  of  perpetual  labor 
from  their  birth,  who  has  not  felt  this  ?  Who  is  there  who  has 
never — nay,  who  has  Lv/u  often — felt  that  he  has  been  hardly 
treated  by  the  Creator  in  not  having  left  to  him  the  power  of 
absolutely  suppressing  a  part  of  his  existence  ?  And  yet  in  the 
face  of  this  we  dare  to  complain  so  loudly  of  the  want  of  time. 
We  venture  even  blasphemously  to  pretend  that  we  lack  the 
time  to  concern  ourselves  with  the  important  aflEairs  of  our  life, 
with  the  principles  of  religion,  for  example,  or  with  the  busi- 
ness of  the  State.  And  we  comfort  ourselves  by  saying  that 
we  will  leave  these  matters  to  the  experts,  the  very  men  of  all 
others  who  are  in  them  to  be  suspected,  since  they  live  only  by 
professing  and  supporting  the  system  that  pays  them. 

In  reality  it  is  more  nearly  true  that  everybody  has  too  much 
time  than  that  he  has  too  little.  At  any  rate,  there  are  none 
who  have  too  little  for  their  business  in  life.  The  trouble  is 
that  they  will  not  apply  it  to  that  business,  but  go  about  pain- 
fully to  waste  it  over  trifling  and  superfluous  business,  or  tri- 
fling and  superfluous  pleasures  (for  of  these,  too,  some  are  neces- 
sary), and  then  complain  that  they  have  not  enough  left  for 
what  is  requisite  to  be  done. 

«  4c  *  *  *  * 

Not  only  is  there  time  enough,  but  there  is  virtue  and  intel- 
lect enough  in  the  world  to  make  it  as  well  worth  living  in  as 
the  Creator  has  by  his  works  declared  it  to  be.  And  however 
foolish  we  may  be,  we  are  all  wise  enough  to  know  that  it  is 
important  to  give  to  virtue  and  to  intellect  their  proper  place, 
which  is  to  say  the  principal  place,  in  the  conduct  of  human 
affairs.  Yet  it  would  seem  as  though  all  effort  from  generation 
to  generation  had  been  directed  to  doing  exactly  the  reverse. 
The  vulgar  herd  of  men  are  only  capable  of  playing  about,  of 
wondering  at  all  things,  and  of  believing  and  doing  as  they  are 
told.  A  few  only  there  are  who  can  content  themselves  with 
none  of  these  things,  and  who  are  thus  marked  out  as  having 
been  seat  into  the  world   on  more   important  errands.     You 


FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM.  201 

take  the  vulgar  herd  and  call  one  king,  another  prince,  priest, 
lawgiver,  subject,  vassal,  what  not,  which  changes  not  their 
nature,  and  is  only  your  way  of  lying  in  the  face  of  Heaven  by 
declaring  that  one  of  them,  taken  indiscriminately,  is  afore  or 
after  other.  And  the  few  to  whom  the  highest  title  and  the 
office  of  right  belong,  find  both  usurped,  and  themselves  rel- 
egated mostly  to  the  hewing  of  wood  and  the  drawing  of 
water.  It  is  not  that  the  blind  lead  the  blind,  but  that  the 
blind  lead  the  seeing,  and  push  him  into  the  very  ditch  which 
he  alone  could  discover. 

*  *  *  *  9tC  * 

At  Sea,  August  9. 
Those  who  see  the  Creator  in  his  works  cannot  fail  to  love 
him.  And  they  who  know  why  they  love  the  sea  know  that 
it  is  because  here  they  do  see  him — because  they  find  them- 
selves without  their  shoes  in  the  holy  of  holies.  In  the 
tempest,  when  the  rack  scours  the  sky,  as  it  did  last  night, 
thick  and  black,  when  the  wind  howls,  when  lightnings  jag 
down  a  vivid  light  on  the  dark  waters,  and  the  waves  come  up 
and  look  in  at  you  over  your  rail  as  you  plunge  and  dive  into 
them — then  you  feel  that  you  are  in  the  hands  of  Omnipotence, 
and  that  the  most  you  can  do  is  to  take  or  to  guess  at  the  Om- 
nipotent decrees,  and  to  act  upon  them  and  by  them.  Or  when, 
as  to-day,  the  calm  succeeds,  the  clouds  lie  lazily  about  the  blue 
in  white  and  gray  fleeces,  when  the  sun  shines  and  the  waters 
lilt  to  the  gentle  measure  of  a  soft  breeze,  that  you  drink  in 
through  your  nostrils  as  though  it  were  immortality — who  can 
fail  to  feel  in  these  the  Majesty,  the  Might,  and  the  Beneficence 
of  the  Almighty  ? 


CHAPTER  LIV. 

In  Port,  14th  August. 
It  is  a  pregnant  fact  that  no  man  has  yet  been  found  to  chal- 
lenge the  perfection  of  the  material  world,  or  of  any  part  of  its 


202  FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM. 

furniture.  Never  has  it  been  so  much  as  conceived  that  any 
one  of  the  created  things  and  beings  we  see  around  us  is  not 
thoroughly  adapted  to  its  immediate  uses.  This  has  been  felt 
by  all  men  in  all  ages,  and  in  every  stage  of  knowledge,  as 
completely  as  it  now  is  or,  so  far  as  we  may  judge  from  anal- 
ogy, which  is  all  we  have  to  judge  by,  ever  will  be  felt.  It 
was  believed  of  the  solar  system,  when  the  Ptolemaic  hypothesis 
of  the  sun  moving  round  the  earth  was  received  ;  it  is  believed 
now  that  Copernicus  has  re-established  the  more  ancient  eastern 
system  of  astronomy.  It  was  believed  of  the  human  body 
before  and  after  Harvey  had  established  the  circulation  of  the 
blood  ;  of  all  animals  before  Buffon,  Cuvier,  or  Darwin.  It  is 
to  be  accepted,  therefore,  as  an  eternal  truth — for  that  belief  is 
certainly  entitled  to  be  so  considered  which  no  increase  of 
knowledge  can  affect ;  and  this  is,  perhaps,  the  only  belief 
which  no  increase  of  knowledge  ever  has  affected.  Surely, 
then,  here  at  last  is  an  impregnable  standpoint  ;  surely  here  is 
the  one  proof  that  has  never  failed  of  the  Omnipotence,  the 
Beneficence,  and  the  Majesty  of  the  Almighty  ;  surely  this  is 
the  one  great  rebuke  to  those  who  have  presumed  to  say  that 
there  is  no  Almighty. 

To  give  attention  to  things  is  to  give  all  we  can,  and  what  is 
remarkable  is,  that  while  the  first  and  the  last  result  of  atten- 
tion to  the  works  of  God  is  always  admiration,  so  the  result, 
first  or  last,  of  attention  to  the  works  of  man  is  alw'ays  dissatis- 
faction. We  feel  that  the  former  are  perfect  and  satisfactory, 
even  if  we  do  not  know  it  ;  we  feel  equally  that  the  latter  are 
imperfect  and  unsatisfactory,  if  only  we  did  know  it.  Whence 
arises  the  spirit  of  criticism.  And  whence,  also,  it  arises  that 
every  man  will  as  little  question  the  works  of  God  as  he  readily 
will  those  of  man.  For  we  each  of  us  believe  that  we  possess 
in  ourselves  all-sufiicient  canons  of  judgment.  Even  the  very 
little  feel  capable  of  criticising  the  very  great  ;  for  to  say  that 
they  are  great  is  to  criticise  them.  And  the  amusing  part  of  it 
is,  that  he  is  the  greatest  of  men  whose  work  is  most  com- 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM.  203 

pletely  accepted  by  the  littlest.  So  that  universal  popularity 
amounts  to  nothing  more  than  a  certificate  of  excellence  from 
those  who  are  least  competent,  according  to  ordinary  notions, 
to  give  it. 

****** 

Descartes,  in  his  discourse  upon  reason  and  truth,  informs  us 
that  as  soon  as  he  was  old  enough  to  be  quit  of  his  schoolmas- 
ters he  "  entirely  quitted  the  study  of  letters,  and  resolving  to 
seek  no  other  science  than  that  which  I  could  find  in  myself  or 
in  the  great  book  of  the  world,  I  employed  the  rest  of  my 
youth  in  travelling,  in  seeing  courts  and  armies,  in  frequenting 
people  of  diverse  humors  and  conditions,  and  in  so  reflecting 
everywhere  on  the  things  I  saw,  as  myself  to  draw  more  profit 
from  them — for  it  seemed  to  me  that  I  should  find  much  more 
truth  in  the  reasoning  that  each  one  makes  touching  the  affairs 
which  interest  him,  and  of  which  the  event  will  shortly  after 
punish  him  if  he  has  judged  them  ill,  than  in  that  which  a  man  of 
letters  makes  in  his  study  touching  speculations  which  produce 
no  effect,  and  which  are  of  no  consequence  to  him  unless  it  be 
that  he  will  satisfy  his  vanity  in  proportion  as  they  are  far  from 
common  sense,  and  in  proportion  to  the  cleverness  and  artifice 
he  has  employed  to  make  them  appear  probable."  This  is 
doubtless  the  right  way  to  proceed  ;  but  then  in  order  to  do 
that  we  must  each  consider  the  tenement  that  has  been  given  to 
us  for  our  habitation  in  this  world,  and  ourselves  make  the  furni- 
ture appropriate  to  it.  Whereas  it  is  so  much  simpler  to  live 
in  the  furnished  lodgings  that  men  of  letters  have  provided 
for  us. 

The  way  the  great  sixteenth  century  sculptor,  Torrigiani, 
died  was  this.  He  had  made  in  Spain  a  statue  of  the  Virgin  ; 
the  pious  persons  who  had  ordered  it  of  him  sought  to  pay  him 
for  it  much  less  than  he  held  the  work  to  be  worth,  whereupon 
at  last  Torrigiani,  being  a  sensitive  and  impatient  man,  took  his 
mallet  and  broke  the  statue  to  pieces.     This  was  declared  to  be 


204  FLOTSAM   AKD   JETSAM. 

an  act  of  impious  sacrilege,  and  Torrigiani  was  put  into  the 
prison  of  the  Inquisition  and  condemned  to  be  burned  for  it, 
from  which  he  only  saved  himself  by  starving  himself  to  death. 
Is  not  this  the  very  typical  history  of  what  is  sometimes  known 
as  impiety,  blasphemy,  and  the  like  ?  By  man's  hand,  and 
out  of  man's  imagination,  a  something  is  made  which  is  in- 
tended to  represent,  and  which  maybe  does  more  or  less  repre- 
sent, the  Almighty.  And  then  it  is  declared  that  to  deface  or 
to  injure  that  creation  is  to  defame  and  to  insult  the  uncreated 
original  that  has  been  sought  in  it.  The  artificer  takes  the 
wood — of  one  part  he  makes  a  god  and  worships  it,  and  of  the 
other  a  fire  wherein  to  burn  all  those  who  will  not  worship  with 
him. 

Benvenuto  Cellini's  father  had  conceived  the  ambition  of 
making  him  the  first  flute-player  in  the  world,  and  to  the  day 
of  his  death  was  wont  tenderly  to  reproach  his  son  with  having 
neglected  that  divine  vocation  in  order  to  become  an  artist  in 
the  working  of  metals.  And  if  this  is  noteworthy,  no  less 
noteworthy  is  Benvenuto's  own  desire,  shown  in  his  delightful 
memoirs,  to  present  himself  as  a  roystering  gallant  and  soldier, 
rather  than  as  the  artist  he  was.  When  the  Constable  Bourbon 
besieged  Rome,  Benvenuto  obtained  the  command  of  a  few 
pieces  of  artillery  in  St.  Angel  o,  where  the  Pope  had  taken 
refuge,  and  he  tells  of  the  good  shots  he  made  with  far  more 
detail  and  pride  than  he  shows  for  any  of  his  immortal  works. 
But  this  is  to  be  forgiven  for  the  good  story  he  tells  of  the  tiara 
and  jewels.  When  the  castle  was  supposed  to  be  in  imminent 
danger  of  being  taken,  the  Pope  sent  for  Benvenuto,  who,  by 
his  orders,  broke  up  the  triple  crown  and  all  the  apostolic 
jewels,  melted  down  the  gold,  and  sewed  the  precious  stones  in 
pieces  of  stuff  on  the  Holy  Father's  back  !  Is  not  this  a 
charming  and  suggestive  story  ? 


FLOTSAM   AND  JETSAM.  205 


CHAPTER  LV. 


At  Sea,  l7th  August. 
Thekk  come,  perhaps,  to  all  of  us  those  moments  of  pro- 
found disappointment  and  depression  when  all  energy  seems  to 
fail,  when  all  enjoyments  disgust,  and  all  tastes  turn  to  bitter  in 
the  mouth.  This  does  not  conmionly  arise  from  the  apparent 
nature  of  circumstances  ;  on  the  contrary,  when  these  seem 
most  desperate  and  hopeless,  then  it  is  that  a  man  will  feel  the 
most  spirit  rise  within  him,  then  that  his  courage  will  be 
greatest  and  the  work  he  does  be  the  hardest.  It  is  rather 
when  all  things  appear  to  go  smoothly,  when  his  desires  seem 
satisfied  and  his  prospects  fair,  that  this  handwriting  appears 
on  the  wall  declaring  that  there  is  no  delight  in  anything  that 
he  knows.  And  then  he  feels  that  desire  to  pluck  himself  up 
by  the  roots  from  all  that  he  does  know  and  to  seek  that  he 
does  not,  which  always  seems  to  promise  consolation,  and 
which,  indeed,  always  brings  consolation.  This  being  so,  we 
are,  perhaps,  less  unfortunate  than  we  think  in  knowing  little, 
since  that  in  itself  assures  us  that  the  field  open  to  us  is  by  so 
much  the  greater  ;  for  if  there  were  any  who  had  tried  every- 
thing and  knew  everything  in  the  world,  the  only  resource  for 
him  on  such  an  occasion  were  to  go  out  of  it. 

****** 

He  who  would  really  go  to  war,  and  not  merely  make  a 
noise  with  his  weapons,  always  does  do  it  at  his  own  cost. 
Bayard  lost  his  own  life,  Galileo  his  own  liberty,  Palissy 
burnt  his  own  furniture  to  fire  his  ware,  Cellini  melted  his  own 
plate  to  found  his  Theseus,  and  not  one  of  them  was  ever 
repaid  by  the  enjoyment  of  ease,  wealth,  or  glory  for  the  vic- 
tories which  they  won,  and  by  which  others  have  profited. 
There  is  no  chance  but  this — either  to  fight  in  the  van  with 
certain  loss  of  tranquillity  and  probable  loss  of  life  and  honor  ; 
or  else  to  do  sutler's  work  in  the  rear  of  the  army,  and  when 


206  FLOTSAM   AND  JETSAM. 

the  battle  is  over  to  come  forth  by  night  and  plunder  the  dead. 
The  latter  trade  brings  a  reward  which  all  can  appreciate  ; 
but  he  who  would  enter  upon  the  former  must  be  very  sure  of 
his  mission,  very  sure  of  his  methods,  and  very  suflBciently 
satisfied  with  the  sole  testimony  of  his  own  conscience  that  he 
has  done  well  ;  for  he  will  get  no  other. 

****** 

It  is  a  common  saying — and  like  most  common  sayings,  a 
false  one — that  tastes  differ,  as  though  taste  were  of  many 
kinds,  or  as  though  it  consisted  in  aught  else  than  the  power 
of  recognizing  excellence.  What  really  differs  is  the  extent  to 
which  each  possesses  this  power,  which  varies  with  the  knowl- 
edge acquired,  the  attention  given,  and  the  opportunities  pos- 
sessed. Yet  those  who  have  fulfilled  none  of  the  conditions, 
assume  equally  with  those  who  have  fulfilled  all  to  have  a  taste 
— whence  it  is  made  to  fjeem  as  though  excellence  varied  in 
proportion  to  the  power  of  detecting  it.  We  should  all  have 
loved  Helen  of  Troy  had  we  but  known  her,  seen  her,  and 
lived  with  her  as  Paris  did  ;  and  if  we  love  another  it  is  that 
our  knowledge,  attention,  and  opportunities  have  not  extended 
beyond  that  other.  '*  A  poor  thing,  but  mine  own,"  we 
might  all  say  ;  instead  of  which  we  all  do  say,  ' '  a  rich  thing, 
because  mine  own,"  and  declare  that  we  have  selected  by  taste 
that  which  has  been  forced  upon  us  by  necessity.  This  is  one 
of  the  consolations  of  ignorance. 

****** 

Is  it  not  strange  that  with  all  the  work  that  has  been  done 
since  the  world  began,  it  is  precisely  those  truths  which  it 
most  imports  us  to  know  that  are  still  farthest  from  being  de- 
monstrated ?  The  demonstration  that  two  and  two  make  four, 
that  the  whole  is  greater  than  the  part,  nay,  that  the  square  of 
the  hypothenuse  of  a  right-angled  triangle  is  equal  to  the  sum 
of  the  squares  of  the  other  two  sides — this  is  perfect ;  no 
human  creature  who  has  been  taken  through  the  steps  that  lead 
to  the  demonstration  ever  could  doubt  or  ever  has  doubted  it. 


FLOTSAM  ASTD  JETSAM.  207 

But  the  nature  and  the  attributes  of  the  Almighty,  the  nature 
of  good  and  evil,  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  these  are  matters 
which  are  still  as  problems  to  mankind,  and  which  have  re- 
ceived demonstrations,  nay,  which  still  receive  them,  as  various 
as  the  tongues  and  the  climates  of  the  earth.  This  may  show 
us  that  it  is  not  only  the  right,  but  also  the  duty  of  each  to 
approach  these  tremendous  subjects  for  himself  ;  not,  indeed, 
lightly  or  without  aim,  but  honestly  and  laboriously,  so  that  he 
may  at  last  have  something  more  to  say  for  his  belief  than  that 
he  has  received  it  from  a  chance  nurse,  a  chance  priest,  or, 
worst  of  all,  from  a  chance  atheist. 

****** 
That  a  man  should  love  his  friend  and  hate  his  enemy  is  a 
rule  far  less  easy  to  act  upon  than  it  seems.  It  is,  indeed, 
more  diflScult  to  hate  than  to  love  ;  for  if  there  are  few  who  de- 
serve at  our  hands  more  than  endurance,  there  are  still  fewer 
who  deserve  more  than  contempt.  We  all  are  ready  to  return 
good  for  good,  and  evil  for  evil  ;  we  do  it,  rather  as  a  matter 
of  debtor  and  creditor  account,  than  from  love  in  the  one  case 
or  from  hatred  in  the  other.  And  even  as  a  question  of  ac- 
count this  is  also  true,  since  if  there  are  few  who  can  confer 
true  benefits  there  are  fewer  who  can  inflict  real  injury.  The 
mere  disposition  and  intention  to  inflict  it,  however  they  may 
by  acts  be  made  manifest,  can  of  themselves  only  excite  pity 
and  laughter — not  hatred.  I  am  sure  that  I  must  have  esteemed 
a  man  much,  and  I  am  not  sure  but  that  I  must  have  loved 
him  much,  in  order  to  hate  him  a  little. 


CHAPTER  LVI. 

Off  Nieuport,  25th  August. 
With  fine  weather  and  the  right  amount  of  wind  to  enable 
you  to  go  nicely,  ' '  trade  with  the  tide, "  it  is  hard  to  resist 
the  temptation  of  playing  about  with  the  fish,  and  I  have  just 


208  FLOTSAM    AND   JETSAM. 

got  a  haul  of  my  trawl  over  these  Flemish  Banks,  which  are  a 
famous  place  for  it.  The  mere  notion  of  it  enlivened  the 
whole  of  my  immense  ship's  company,  and  we  regard  ourselves 
as  spoiled  children  of  Fortune  now  that  we  have  realized  our 
take.  For  it  consists  of  two  bucketfuls  of  soles,  ray  ("  vir- 
gins," Phil  calls  them,  "  because,"  he  says,  "  they  are  little 
thorn-backs")  "  monkeys,"  crabs,  and  star-fish.  There  is  all 
the  fun  of  gambling  in  it,  with  this  advantage,  that  you  stand 
to  lose  nothing  ;  unless,  indeed,  it  be  your  tide  in,  as  I  fear 
we  shall  do.  And  the  delight  of  circumventing  "  them  artful 
beggars,"  the  fish,  is  greater  even  than  the  pleasure  of  eating 
them  fresh  out  of  the  water,  which,  however,  is  not  small. 
The  amusing  part  of  it  is  that  the  more  you  catch  the  more 
useless  they  are  to  you  ;  so  that  unless  you  have  caught  but 
few  iudeed,  you  always  have  to  throw  the  major  part  over- 
board. Which,  in  fact,  is  the  history  of  all  acquisitions  by 
land  or  by  sea. 

*  *  *  4:  ti  * 

Bruges,  27th  August. 
Probably  nine  out  of  ten  of  any  given  persons  would  say  off- 
hand that  Bruges  is  a  very  interesting  city,  and  it  is  in  all  like- 
lihood that  the  tenth  would  believe  it.  Yet  in  truth  it  is  a 
most  poverty-stricken  assemblage  of  ghost-like  houses  without 
inhabitants,  without  life,  and,  what  is  most  cruel  of  all,  with- 
out architecture — even  Flemish  architecture,  which  is  not  ask- 
ing much,  heaven  knows.  The  Cathedral  is  a  kind  of  brick 
skeleton  which  may  or  may  not  have  been  intended  for  a  stone 
covering  ;  the  Hotel  de  Ville  is  of  that  pretentious  Gothic  which 
has  made  so  many  modern  victims,  and  the  only  truly  interests 
ing  features  are  a  few  houses  which  the  Spaniards  have  left  as 
their  legacy  of  glory  here,  just  as  the  Moors  left  theirs  in  Spain, 
to  be  the  principal  ornaments  of  those  who  are  no  longer  under 
their  rule.  The  famous  belfry,  a  fourteenth-century  monument 
though  it  be,  is  not  at  all  beautiful  in  itself,  and  is  stuck  in  the 
midst  of  a  mass  of  low  builidngs  like  a  beacon  in  a  sand-bank. 
The  redeeming  part  of  it  is  its  intention  as  a  rallying-point  for 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM.  209 

free  citizens,  sufficiently  indicated  by  the  bell  and  the  two 
balconies.  To  bring  the  populace  together  and  to  make 
speeches  to  them,  have  been  from  all  times  the  methods  of 
popular  government,  and  Bruges  long  lived  in  the  belief  that 
popular  government  was  the  perfection  of  all  things.  Now  it 
lives  upon  the  past,  and  the  remnant  that  remains  of  its  inhabi- 
tants pass  their  days  in  regretting  the  time  when  Damene  was 
a  port  and  Bruges  a  great  city,  and  in  aping  the  fashions  of 
Paris.  It  is  a  sorry  place.  Also  it  is  full  of  mosquitoes. 
****** 
There  are  here  a  Nativity  by  Holbein,  a  Mater  Dolorosa  by 
Themling,  and  a  Martyrdom  by  Meinling,  in  all  of  which  pict- 
ures I  believe,  for  they  have  all  the  character  of  the  Flemish 
school  so  far  as  I  know  it  ;  there  is  also  a  Virgin  and  Child 
attributed  to  Michael  Angelo,  in  which  statuary  I  do  not  be- 
lieve, since  it  has  not  the  character  of  Michael  Angelo's  work 
so  far  as  I  know  it.  Yet  the  verger  who  showed  it  assured  me 
it  was  his.  So  that  I  claim  to  prefer  my  judgment,  founded  on 
my  knowledge  of  Michael's  undoubted  works,  to  his  tradition. 
If  this  is  allowable  for  the  works  attributed  to  man,  is  it  allow- 
able for  the  works  attributed  to  God  ?  I  had  also  to  ask  my- 
self this  question,  because  another  verger  showed  me  pictures 
of  the  miracles  of  St.  Ursula  and  the  eleven  thousand  virgins, 
which  miracle  he  assured  me  was  historical  and  undoubted.  Yet 
I  could  not  bring  myself  to  believe  either  in  that.  In  fact,  I 
fear  I  am  not  master  of  my  belief,  that  I  am  the  slave  of  the 
evidence  presented  to  me  and  weighed  by  my  judgment,  which 
means  that  I  am  to  decide  upon  imperfect  information  by  fal- 
lible reason.  Doubtless  the  vergers  are  best  ofiE  who  believe 
in  their  Afcchael  Angelo  and  St.  Ursula,  without  weighing  evi- 
dence, because  they  have  been  told  to  do  so.  This  reminds 
me  of  one  of  Diderot's  Pensees  philosophiques :  *'  Lost  in  an 
immense  forest  during  the  night,  I  have  but  one  little  light  by 
which  to  conduct  myself.  Then  comes  a  man  who  says,  '  My 
friend,  blow  out  your  taper  in  order  the  better  to  find  your 
way.'     That  man  is  a  theologian." 


210  FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM. 

When  I  think  of  all  the  books  I  have  read  and  of  all  the 
speeches  I  have  listened  to,  even  the  best  of  them,  it  seems  to 
me  as  though  successful  utterance  in  either  form  were  in  propor- 
tion to  the  boldness  and  insolence  of  the  author.  It  seems  as 
though  the  most  famous  had  but  put  down  recklessly  the  first 
trivialities  that  passed  through  their  head,  only  taking  care  not 
to  omit  that  which  was  most  trivial.  There  is,  indeed,  the  use 
of  the  tools  to  be  learned  ;  but  that  is  learned  in  using  them, 
and  as  soon  as  you  have  acquired  a  suflBcient  vocabulary  to  ex- 
press your  idle  fancies,  and  sufficient  immodesty  to  dare  it, 
you  are  a  great  author  or  a  great  speaker. 

A  certain  man  would  never  have  but  one  shirt  at  a  time, 
because  he  had  but  one  body  at  a  time  on  which  to  put  it. 
From  which  it  follows  that  at  certain  intervals  he  had  no  shirt 
at  all,  unless,  indeed,  the  one  he  had  was  everlasting,  which  is 
inadmissible.  And  thus  it  is  that  we  are  reduced  to  the  desire 
to  possess  the  superfluities  of  life,  not  because  we  care  for  the 
superfluous,  but  because  we  desire  to  make  sure  of  always  hav- 
ing the  necessary. 

%  4e  *  *  *  * 

OsTEND,  28th  August. 
*'  Now,  Phil,"  said  I,  **  that  is  the  right  way  to  deal  with  a 
cucumber.  You  saw  me  cover  the  slices  with  salt  and  set  the 
plate  up  on  a  slant,  and  now  you  see,  as  1  told  you,  that  all 
that  water  has  run  from  it."  Phil  says,  "Yes,  sir;"  but 
Phil  has  an  infinitude  of  different  ways  of  uttering  those  two 
words,  which  make  up  pretty  well  the  whole  of  his  conversa- 
tion with  me,  and  on  this  occasion  he  did  not  brin^  them  out 
with  that  enthusiasm  appropriate  to  indicate  that  a  new  and 
great  light  had  broken  in  upon  his  soul.  This  grieved  me  ;  for 
if  there  is  one  only  thing  in  the  world  that  I  do  understand  it 
is  cookery  in  all  its  branches  ;  and  I  have  observed  that  Philip 
has  shown  great  flippancy  in  receiving  my  revelations  on  this 
—in  fact  I  strongly  suspect  a  conspiracy  in  the  forecastle  to 


FLOTSAM  AlsTD  JETSAM.  211 

treat  the  whole  matter  with  unbelieving  derision.  I  remember 
teaching  Phil  the  immortal  omelette,  and  suddenly  seeing  him 
go  head  first  into  the  frying-pan  under  strong  suspicions  of  a 
Parthian  shove  from  Ned,  who  was  going  on  deck,  and  whom 
I  believe  I  there  heard  chuckling  in  concert  with  George.  I 
may  be  wrong,  but  when  I  heard  Phil  say,  "  Yes,  sir,"  in  a 
hesitating,  half-convinced  way,  I  felt  wounded.  It  was  clear 
he  did  not  believe  as  he  should.  '*  Do  you  see  ?"  I  said, 
severely  looking  at  him.  Phil  has  a  way  of  half  grinning  oc- 
casionally, and  here  he  half  grinned,  and  repeated  his  "  Yes, 
sir,"  with  an  even  more  unsatisfactory  intonation.  *'  Well, 
but  don't  you  see  the  water  ?"  I  asked,  angrily.  "  Oh,  yes, 
sir,"  he  replied,  readily,  with  an  accent  of  the  most  profound 
conviction.  '*  Well,  then — "  but  here  I  suddenly  saw  that 
I  was  embarking  in  a  disquisition  on  the  nature  and  properties 
of  cucumber,  and  on  the  effect  of  getting  rid  of  this  water 
from  it  ;  so  I  simply  added,  "  All  right,"  and  left  Phil  to 
digest  the  brutal  fact  that  when  you  put  salt  on  cucumber 
water  results,  without,  I  feel  sure,  having  conveyed  any  per- 
suasion into  his  mind  that  the  cucumber  is  better  afterward 
than  it  was  before. 

****** 
I  have  been  half  through  the  town  to  find  a  washerwoman 
who  would  undertake  to  wash  the  ship's  linen  in  two  days,  and 
had  almost  resolved  to  go  to  sea  dirty,  when  I  was  directed  to 
a  little  street  at  the  end  of  unknown  turnings.  I  turned  and 
turned  till  I  came  to  it  ;  and  walking  into  the  first  house,  ac- 
cording to  my  instructions,  I  found  myself  face  to  face  with  an 
old  harridan,  who,  as  usual,  spoke  nothing  but  the  most  ac- 
cursed of  the  Flemish  tongues.  But  now,  as  I  was  trying  to 
come  to  terms  with  her  by  the  help  of  German  and  pantomime, 
there  stepped  into  the  passage  the  most  splendid  creature  that 
ever  wore  brown  eyes  for  the  injury  of  man.  With  hair 
deftly  plaited  on  the  top  of  her  head,  crowning  a  face  the  very 
Fomarina's  own,  with  bare  arms,  and  the  free  port  and  car- 
riage of  a  goddess,  and  above  all  with  a  smile  that  never  ceased 


212  FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM. 

but  only  played  in  diverse  accents  over  her  features,  she  sud- 
denly raade  me  forget  my  washing,  my  departure,  and  Phil, 
who  stood  behind  me  with  the  bundle  over  his  shoulder, 
altogether.  "Yes,"  she  said,  "she  would  do  it."  "And 
would  she  be  careful  really  to  starch  the  shirts?"  "  Yes,  of 
course."  Here,  for  the  twentieth  time,  she  showed  a  glisten- 
ing row  of  pearly  teeth.  "  And  she  would  be  sure  to  have 
them  ready?"  "Quite  sure."  "And — yes — that  was  all. 
Ah  ! — and,  let  us  see — let  us  see — to-day  was  Wednesday  ?" 
"  Yes,  Wednesday,"  she  re-echoed  abstractedly,  rolling  her 
sleeve  a  little  further  up,  so  that  a  dimpled  elbow  came  into 
sight.  "  Wednesday — yes — well,  then,  on" — but  at  this 
point  she  gave  another  roll,  raising  her  hand  to  the  ceiling  to 
do  it  the  more  easily,  and  again  showing  those  teeth.  Of 
course  I  had  to  wait  till  she  had  done  this,  and  then  I  added, 
"  Well,  then,  on  Friday.  Now,  Phil,  what  are  you  waiting 
for  ?" 

There  is  occasionally  an  unnatural  and  untoward  smartness 
about  Phil  which  is  intensely  irritating.  If  ever  I  lie  in  my 
berth  till  half-past  seven,  then  it  is  and  then  alone  that  he  has 
my  coffee  ready  by  seven  ;  and  when  I  turned  out  this  morn- 
ing the  first  thing  I  saw  was  a  gigantic  basket  full  of  the  clean 
linen.  But  who  was  to  tell  whether  he  had  got  it  all,  or 
whether  he  had  paid  the  bill,  or  whether — clearly  it  was  neces- 
sary I  should  myself  go  and  see  to  all  this.  Go,  therefore,  I 
did,  and  I  don't  know  why,  but  so  it  was  that,  when  I  saw  my 
belle  Ostendaise  again,  I  had  a  kind  of  jump  just  the  same  in 
nature,  if  not  in  degree,  as  one  might  feel  at  suddenly  coming 
across  the  Sacharissa  of  one's  most  constant  devotions.  She 
smiled — and  then  I  smiled.  Then  I  asked  in  the  most  inno- 
cent way  if  the  linen  were  ready.  At  this  she  smiled  again, 
and  put  her  thumb  and  finger — a  wonderful  taper  thumb  and 
finger  for  a  washerwoman — on  the  edge  of  her  sleeve,  whereat 
I  stood  abashed  and  engrossed.  "  Why,  then,  did  not  Mon- 
sieur know  that  his  man  had  been  to  fetch  it  ?"  Monsieur, 
with   eyes   still   fixed   upon  that  sleeve,   evasively   answered, 


FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM.  213 

"  Vraiment  !"  as  though  this   were  quite  new  to  him  ;    but 
feeling  unequal  to  keeping  up,  suddenly  remarked  that  there 
were  very  many  people  at  Ostend — as  though  that  naturally 
followed  or  explained  something — and  thereupon  went  away. 
****** 

Ostend,  30th  August. 

I  feel  extremely  small.  I  have  navigated  so  long  without 
pilots,  without  tugs,  without  any  of  the  appliances  which  are 
usually  held  to  be  necessary,  that  I  have  got  to  believe  in  the 
Billy  Baby,  in  her  captain  (for  Billy  Baby  purposes),  and  in 
her  crew,  as  in  a  religion.  I  have  become,  in  short,  convinced 
that  she  can  do  anything  "  off  her  own  bat"  (as  they  say,  I 
believe,  in  cricket);  and  now  I  have  got  a  '*  facer"  (as  they 
say,  I  believe,  in  pugilism),  and  am  humbled.  Nevertheless, 
I  so  far  hold  on  to  my  belief  in  the  Billy  Baby  religion  as  to 
be  still  convinced  that  if  I  had  been  in  any  less  lucky  ship  I 
should  have  gone  to  pieces  ;  in  fact,  I  did  think  we  should  go 
to  pieces,  and  the  excitement  of  it  was  great. 

It  was  all  the  fault  of  an  abominable  Norwegian  brig,  whose 
papers  were  not  in  order,  and  who  kept  us  for  three  mortal 
hours  in  the  lock  before  we  could  get  out.  The  wind  was 
strong  from  N.  W.  all  but  right  into  the  harbor,  and  the  spring 
tide  (to-day  is  the  new  moon)  was  setting  right  across  the  har- 
bor to  the  eastward  at  thirty  thousand  miles  an  hour  at  a 
moderate  computation.  I  knew  well  the  danger  of  getting 
borne  down  on  to  the  eastern  jetty  with  wind  and  tide,  but  my 
faith  was  strong,  and  I  declined  all  help,  and  started.  We 
were  nearing  the  entrance  when  I  saw  that  between  the  wind 
and  the  tide  she  wouldn't  fetch  out.  I  put  her  about ;  but  the 
heavy  sea  knocked  her  out  of  time — she  declined  to  stay — and 
in  a  moment  we  were  into  the  east  jetty,  jammed  against  it 
with  the  whole  force  of  wind  and  tide,  and  thumping  in  a  way 
which  was  perfectly  awful.  Down  sail  was  the  only  thing  to 
do,  and  then  to  get  a  line  if  possible  to  the  west  jetty.  But 
the  sea  was  very  heavy — would  she  hold  together  till  then,  or 
smash  up  ?     Our  boat  was  on  deck,  unluckily,  but  after  a  time 


314  FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM. 

I  saw  one  coming  down  the  port,  and  hailed  him.  Meantime 
she  kept  thumping  against  the  jetty  in  a  way  it  seemed  impos- 
sible she  could  stand,  and  I  expected  every  instant  to  see  some- 
thing or  everything  go.  This  lasted  for  some  five  mortal 
minutes,  but  at  last  the  boat  got  down  to  us,  took  a  line,  and 
in  about  two  years,  as  it  seemed,  we  heard  the  welcome  sound 
"  haul  in."  Haul  in  we  did,  ran  the  foresail  up,  got  her 
round,  and  sailed  ignominiously  into  the  harbor  again — for  it 
was  useless  to  try  to  get  out.  And  now  I  have  been  ascer- 
taining my  damages,  which,  considering  all  things,  are  very 
small.  My  gaff  is  broken,  three  bolts  and  a  plank  or  two,  in- 
cluding the  covering  plank,  sprung,  cat-head  broken  off,  and 
some  paint  gone,  is  about  the  sum  of  everything.  We  have 
come  off  cheaply  enough,  and  but  for  the  humiliation  I  should 
not  care.  But  I  really  thought  the  time  had  come  to  sing  my 
little  hymn,  and  even  Ned,  who  believes  in  her  as  much  as  I 
do,  avows  that  he  doesn't  know  bow  it  was  she  didn't  go  to 
pieces.  Well,  I  shall  start  again  at  low  water,  and  repair 
damages  when  I  get  to  England.  I  am  only  consoled  by  the 
fact  that  exactly  the  same  thing  has  happened  this  morning  to 
two  other  vessels,  a  Ramsgate  smack  and  an  Ostend  fisherman, 
and  that  it  was  all  the  fault  of  the  Norwegian  brig,  which  pre- 
vented me  from  going  out  as  I  intended  at  half-flood  over  the 
slack  of  the  stream. 


CHAPTER  LVn. 

At  Sea,  8th  September. 
It  is  a  terrible  thing  to  think  how  continually  this  problem, 
"  What  shall  I  do  with  my  life  ?"  presents  itself.  For  the  man 
whose  whole  efforts  can  barely  suffice  to  procure  bread,  the 
problem  is  indeed  simple  ;  he  has  to  get  his  bread  somehow, 
and  there  is  an  end  of  it.  For  the  man  who  is  in,  and  has  at 
his  command,  one  calling  just  sufficient  to  procure  bread,  it  is 


FLOTSAM   AKD  JETSAM. 


m 


no  problem  at  all ;  all  he  knows  is  how  to  make  dolls'  eyes, 
and  he  has  no  choice  but  to  go  on  making  dolls'  eyes  for  bare 
existence.  But  go  a  stage  higher  ;  go  only  to  the  designer  of 
dolls,  and  you  will  find  a  man  harassed  by  this  problem,  from 
the  moment  that  it  is  time  till  the  moment  it  is  no  longer  time 
to  solve  it. 

And  what  is  still  more  terrible  is  that,  so  soon  as  you  at- 
tempt to  grapple  with  this  first  essential,  and  as  often  as  you 
attempt  it,  you  find  yourself  driven  still  further  back  to  this 
other  question — "Shall  I  be  honest?"  Shall  I  do  what  I 
know,  and  say  what  is  in  me,  to  the  end  they  point  to,  or  shall 
I  do  and  say  other  things  to  my  own  ends  ?  I  have  my  hand 
full  of  truths  ;  shall  I  open  it  and  overwhelm  myself  together 
with  the  rest ;  or  shall  I  close  it,  and  use  it,  the  more  heavily 
weighted  for  them,  fist-like,  to  hustle  my  way  through  this 
crowd  ?  Can  I,  the  centre  and  pivot  of  the  world  to  myself, 
trail  the  pike  and  do  soldier's,  ay,  or  it  may  be  sutler's  duty  ? 
— shall  I  not  break  through  and  lead  the  army,  or  at  the  least  a 
brigade  ?     When  you  have  settled  this  your  life  is  won  or  lost. 

%  Tf  SK  Sjt  V  T* 

It  is  the  curse  of  man  to  make  the  monster  that  devours  him. 
And  the  worst  of  all  is  that  monster  Want,  to  feed  and  gorge 
which  till  he  dies,  beyond  all  resurrection,  of  mere  satiety, 
seems  to  be  held  the  only  proper  purpose  of  life.  When  he 
first  comes  to  you  he  is  but  little  in  stature,  soon  satisfied 
and  easily  pleased,  a  true  friend  and  a  charming  companion, 
pointing  out  the  uses  of  things,  full  of  suggestion,  serving  you 
like  a  lackey  for  the  smallest  of  rewards.  And  then  you  fool- 
ishly have  thought  to  increase  his  value  by  increasing  his  stat- 
ure. With  strange  inventions  and  unholy  charms  you  have,  as 
you  proceeded  on  your  journey,  succeeded  in  blowing  him  out 
to  the  dimensions  of  a  giant,  standing  with  feet  wide  asunder 
as  the  poles,  and  head  in  the  clouds  of  heaven.  You  have  made 
him  immense,  terrible,  tremendous,  untiring,  insatiable,  that 
he  may  serve  you  the  better  ;  and  lo  !  he  is  your  master.  You 
may  not  stir  but  as  he  directs  ;  you  may  not  speak  or  think  but 


314  .^  /  FLOTSAM   AND  JETSAM. 


Ck  ^/ there  is  no  more  any  God,  any  glorious  sky  and 

/ght  of  the  sun  and  moon  for  you  but  as  he  wills  ; 

^and  are  not,  as  he  pleases  ;  and  you — you  who  made 

i  he  is  from  what  he  was — you  are  condemned  to  ramp 

ana  ^  jvel  among  garbage  to  the  end  of  your  days,  to  fill  a 

bottomless  maw  and  satisfy  the  insatiable. 

****** 

The  one  true  satisfaction  that  a  man  can  take  of  his  life  is  to 
feel  that  he  is  doing  some  fruitful  thing  with  it,  that  he,  too, 
like  all  those  that  he  holds  to  be  the  ignobler  works  of  God,  is 
giving  back  to  the  earth  what  he  has  taken  from  it.  He  who 
can  convince  himself  of  this — that  he  is  truly  engaged  in  work 
which  will  better  the  world  while  he  lives,  knows  then  that  he 
is  about  his  duty  ;  he  who  is  persuaded  that  his  work  will  live 
and  bear  fruit  after  he  is  gone,  has  already  achieved  immortal- 
ity. The  applause  and  acceptation  of  men,  and  all  that  goes 
to  make  up  honor  and  fame,  are  only  of  value  in  so  far  as  they 
begin  or  confirm  this  conviction.  But,  now,  if  the  conviction 
be  not  there — if,  instead  of  this,  there  be  doubt,  or  perhaps  a 
strong  suspicion  of  the  contrary  sort — if  the  martyr  has  gone 
to  the  stake  for  gods  of  which  he  does  not  know  that  they  are 
gods,  then  fame,  honor,  and  to  be  seen  of  men  is  no  salve,  but 
only  a  torture  the  more. 

****** 

I  know  a  few  men — alas  !  not  many — of  whom  I  am  sure 
that  they  are  honest,  nor  do  I  see  any  reason  why  I  should  not 
continue  to  be  sure  of  it.  But  I  know,  also,  some  of  whom  I 
am  convinced  that  they  are  rogues  without  faith  or  law  ;  and 
when  I  come  to  think  of  these  I  am  compelled  to  admit  that  of 
them,  at  least,  I  dare  not  be  sure.  Do  we  not  each  of  us  re- 
member how  small — how  infinitesimally  small — a  part  even  of 
our  acts — much  less  of  our  motives — is  known  to  any  who 
would  judge  us  ;  do  we  not  remember  how  great  a  wrong  has 
been  done  to  us  by  judgments  passed  glibly  on  this  imperfect 
knowledge  ?  and  shall  we  not  hesitate  before  we  also  judge 


FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM.  2l1 

others  ?  But,  above  all,  shall  we  not  entirely  cease  to  care  how 
others  judge  us  ?  But  I  speak  as  a  fool,  assuming  that  what 
we  want  is  a  true  judgment — not  a  false  character. 

The  foregoing  observation  is  what  is  called  commonplace. 
That  is  the  point  of  it  ;  since  that  shows  that  all  men  feel  its 
truth.  For  the  most  fearful  of  all  things  is  to  see  the  most 
common  convictions  most  commonly  denied  in  practice. 

Columbus  did  not  discover  America,  for  he  took  it  to  be 
Asia  ;  neither  did  Magellan  first  sail  round  the  world,  for  he 
was  killed  at  the  Philippines  when  the  circuit  was  barely  half 
completed.  Galileo  did  not  believe  that  the  earth  moved  round 
the  sun,  for  he  solemnly  recanted  that  heresy.  But  they  went 
into  the  unknown,  and  adventured  themselves  over  the  edge  of 
the  world,  and  there  is,  therefore,  nothing  to  abate  from  their 
fame.  For  to  measure  the  value  of  work  and  the  credit  due 
for  it  by  the  results  achieved,  is  as  foolish  as  to  measure  the 
morality  of  facts  by  their  accomplishment.  Yet  these  are  the 
only  methods  of  measurement  admitted,  even  by  those  who 
affect  to  revere  Columbus,  Magellan,  and  Galileo. 


CHAPTER  LVIII. 

In  Port,  15th  September. 
I  ONCE  heard  a  man  wrangling  with  a  cabman  over  six- 
pence. "  It  isn't  the  amount,  you  know,  but  the  Principle," 
he  explained  to  me,  with  which  I  agreed.  Some  time  after 
the  same  man  confided  to  me  the  negotiations  respecting  his 
marriage  settlements,  as  to  which  a  great  fight  was  being  waged 
over  a  certain  sum  of  ten  thousand  pounds.  He  said  nothing 
of  principle  then,  and  treated  the  matter  as  deriving  its  impor- 
tance solely  from  the  largeness  of  the  amount  at  stake.  From 
which  I  was  forced  to  conclude  that  there  was  in  his  estimation 
a  point  somewhere  between  sixpence  and  ten  thousand  pounds. 


818  FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM. 

at  which  Principle  may  cease  to  operate  and  be  disregarded, 
and  Amount  be  alone  taken  into  consideration  ;  which  further 
led  me  to  reflect  that  all  men,  with  the  fewest  possible  excep- 
tions, do  also  recognize  that  poiql.  The  point  itself  varies 
with  the  wants,  real  or  invented,  of  the  individual  ;  but  when 
once  that  point  is  passed,  whoever  can  ofEer  to  him  the  satisfac- 
tion of  his  want  is  his  master,  who  may  dispose  of  him,  of 
his  Principle,  and  his  virtue  together.  The  cabman,  we  will 
say,  at  sixpence  gives  up  Principle  for  Amount  ;  he  is  salable 
therefore  at  sixpence.  The  gentleman,  we  will  say,  gives  it  up 
not  under  ten  thousand  pounds  ;  he  is  salable,  therefore,  at 
ten  thousand.  And  between  the  two  there  must  be  many  who 
are  salable  at  ten  pounds,  at  fifty,  at  a  hundred,  or  a  thousand. 
So  that  Walpole  would  not  be  wrong  even  in  this  age  of  virtuQ. 
Only  of  the  two  I  should  far  less  condemn  the  cabman  who 
sold  his  Principle  for  sixpenny  worth  of  necessaries,  than  the 
gentleman  who  sold  his  for  ten  thousand  pounds'  worth  of 
superfluities. 

****** 
That  the  end  does  not  justify  the  means  we  all  are  or  profess 
to  be  agreed  ;  but  what  is  strange  is  that  nobody  has  ever  ques- 
tioned or  ever  does  question  whether  the  means  justify  the  end. 
The  received  code  is  that  you  may  not  do  an  unlawful  thing 
because  it  tends  to  compass  a  lawful  end,  but  that  you  may  do 
a  lawful  thing  even  though  it  tends  to  compass  an  unlawful 
end.  You  shall  not  lie  and  save  innocent  blood,  but  you  shall 
speak  the  truth  and  spill  it.  You  shall  not  murder,  steal,  or 
betray  your  country  ;  but  you  shall  truly  aod  honestly  serve  a 
murderer,  a  thief,  or  a  traitor,  without  crime,  and  shall  be 
harmless  in  bringing  about  his  wicked  ends,  because  your  means 
have  not  been  wicked.  You  may  know  the  ends  to  be  wicked, 
but  you  are  not  to  know  it,  being  concerned  only  with  the 
means  that  you  employ.  You  may  not  do  evil  that  good  may 
come,  but  you  may  and  shall  do  good  that  evil  may  come. 
You  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  end,  forsooth,  and  are  bound 
not  to  look  at  it.     You  are  a  wheel  in  a  fixed  place,  and  all 


FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM.  219 

you  have  to  do  is  to  turn  without  eccentricity  on  your  axis. 

Cowardly  and  degrading  notion   which  prescribes  the    honest 

service  of  roguery  and  the  faithful  following    of    treachery  ! 

What  kind  of  answer,  too,  will  it  be  when  one  day  the  answer 

is  called  for,   to  say  that  we  never  inquired  as  to  the    end, 

and  thought   ourselves    secure  in  the  fair   appearance  of  the 

means  ? 

****** 

I  consider  all  the  self-made  men  I  know,  and  I  conclude  that 
all  the  great  fortunes,  which  is  to  say  as  times  go  all  the  great 
successes,  of  our  days,  have  been  made  either  by  superiority  in 
the  mean  swindling  by  which  money  is  transferred  in  a  genera- 
tion too  cowardly  for  open  violence — or  else  by  the  more 
honest  method  of  hitting  upon  a  very  small  modification  in 
some  article  of  universal  necessity.  One  millionnaire  represents 
an  improved  axle-tree,  another  a  new  stitch  in  a  sewing-machine, 
a  third  a  novel  mixture  of  lubricating  grease,  and  I  have  at  this 
moment  a  man  in  my  eye  who  has  been  offered  thirty  thousand 
pounds  for  a  mere  notion  of  bolting  together  railway  rails. 
The  men  who  first  invented  axle-trees,  sewing-machines,  lubrica- 
tion, and  rails,  were  miserable  failures  as  compared  with  these, 
their  latter-day  parasites — and  so  it  is  that  while  all  the  great 
untried  original  ideas  are  still  going  a-begging,  and  only  get  at 
last  received  by  chance,  all  the  small  supplementary  contempt- 
ible ideas  that  fasten  upon  them  when  once  they  are  received, 
are  madly  scrambled  for  and  bring  certain  reward. 

Thus  it  is  that  with  our  minds  bent  on  small  objects  we 
are  become  a  small  people  with  the  small  ideas  that  pay, 
looking  with  distrust  and  contempt  on  the  larger  that  only 
wear,  their  originator.  It  is  not  that  the  age  of  heroism  is 
past.  There  are  still  heroic  things — alas  !  how  many — to  be 
done  ;  and  still  heroic  men — alas  !  how  few — to  do  them. 
And  he  must  be  the  greater  hero  who  attempts  them,  seeing 
that  he  must  sow  his  life,  his  repose,  his  very  soul,  spirit,  and 
reputation,  and  leave  to  others  who  shall  pass  casually  by,  to 
pluck  with  careless  hand  all  the  fruit  of  the  tree  he  has  planted. 


220  FLOTSAM  AND   JETSAM. 

Yet  not  all,  for  he  has  his  own  knowledge  of  the  worth  of  his 
own  work.  If  he  can  be  content  with  this  he  must,  it  is  true, 
be  a  hero  indeed  ;  but  if  he  be  less  than  content  with  it  he  is 
no  hero  at  all. 


CHAPTER  LIX. 

In  Port,  25th  September, 
It  is  a  pitiable  thing  to  think  that,  with  the  exception  of  the 
fishermen,  and  a  few  of  us  favored  ones  who  have  been  fisher- 
men ourselves,  there  is  scarcely  a  creature  in  those  sea-girt 
islands  of  ours  who  knows  the  proper  taste  of  fish.  The  dead 
bodies  of  fish  kept  for  days  or  weeks,  or  even  for  months,  in 
ice-cellars  they  know  indeed  ;  but  these  are  not  fish.  They  are 
like  to  one  another,  except  in  shape  and  sauce,  and  no  more 
like  to  the  fish  cooked  fresh  out  of  the  water  than  mummy  is 
like  to  man.  If  those  who  look  at  menus  and  go  away  believ- 
ing, on  the  faith  of  them,  that  they  have  eaten  turbot,  brill, 
sole,  mullet,  or  what  not,  were  to  get  one  haul  of  a  trawl,  or  a 
trammel,  or  even  of  a  "  dabbing"  line  (most  delicious  of  all 
fish  is  the  dab,  and  therefore,  I  suppose,  least  known),  and 
were  to  eat  of  their  take,  they  would  never  again  look  at  an 
ice-preserved  fish.  This  icing  is  another  of  our  delightful  de- 
vices by  which  we  improve  out  of  everything  its  natural  salt 
and  taste,  and  make  all  things  insipid  and  alike  ;  which  re- 
minds me  that  all  the  inventions  I  know  of  for  improving  upon 
the  original  simplicity  of  things,  acts,  and  beliefs  do  commonly 
end  in  suppressing  their  original,  like  wicked  children  that  eat 
their  father.  The  taking  of  notes  to  aid  memory  kills  memory  ; 
the  study  of  other  men's  thoughts  to  provoke  our  own  thought 
makes  an  end  of  thinking  ;  theology  destroys  religion  ;  legis- 
lation destroys  the  Law  ;  many  inventions  have  left  man  less 
upright  than  God  made  him.  And  now  there  is  not  one  but 
feels  the  yearning  to  go  back  to  the  time  when  inventions  were 


FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM.  221 

not,  and  mankind  ate  their  fish  either  not  at  all  or  fresh  out  of 
the  water. 

****** 

**  No  man  can  bathe  twice  in  the  same  river,"  is  an  axiom 
accepted  by  all  who  will  think  of  it,  and  upon  this  it  has  been 
remarked  that  no  man  can  even  bathe  once  in  the  same  river, 
for  before  he  has  bathed  even  that  once,  the  water  in  which  he 
began  has  run  away.  Just  so  no  man  can  be  twice  the  same 
self — no,  nor  perhaps  once.  Most  of  us  are  conscious  that  by 
efflux  of  time  their  personality  has  changed — that  all  that  con- 
stitutes it,  whether  corporeal  or  mental,  has  undergone  altera- 
tion, and  that  they  are  no  longer  what  they  were.  They  know 
also  that  this  alteration  has  not  taken  place  suddenly  or  by 
jumps,  but  so  gradually  as  to  be  imperceptible  to  themselves 
except  by  comparisons  made  at  considerable  intervals.  A  per- 
sonality they  have,  but,  like  the  river,  it  is  always  running 
away,  and  its  place  being  filled  by  another,  I  who  write  this 
am  not  the  same  precisely  as  the  I  who  wrote  the  last  sentence 
of  this  paragraph,  nor  as  the  I  who  will  write  the  next.  The 
intermediate  I  is,  indeed,  the  son  of  the  first  and  the  father  of 
the  third,  yet  not  the  same.  And  now  I  ask  myself  which  one 
of  my  many  selves  it  is  which  will  live,  eternally  or  tempo- 
rarily, when  the  long  succession  of  them  is  closed  ?  There  are 
one  or  two,  perhaps  three  of  them,  which  I  should  repudiate 
with  indignation,  there  are  many  of  which  I  have  a  mean  opin- 
ion, and  there  are  a  few  which  I  admire.  If  I  could  only  pick 
and  choose  !  But  no,  this  principle  of  averages  will  come  in,  and 
I  shall  live  forever  or  for  a  day,  in  the  spheres  or  in  one  man's 
mind,  as  my  average  self — which  is  the  only  one  of  all  ray 
selves  that  I  have  never  known.  It  is  bitter  to  think  that  when 
I  am  gone  I  should  not  recognize  what  remains  of  me  if  I  were 
ever  able  to  get  a  glimpse  of  it. 

****** 

Mr.  HoUoway  ought  to  be  Prime  Minister  of  England.  I 
never  go  anywhere  at  home  or  abroad,  but  I  see  bis  name  ;  I 


222  FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM. 

never  take  a  newspaper,  English  or  foreign,  but  I  read  the 
praises  of  his  pills — and  what  is  best  of  all,  I  am  not  obliged  to 
take  them,  and  never  mean  to.  But,  since  we  estimate  the 
worth  of  men,  and  especially  of  ministers,  by  the  extent  to 
which  their  names  have  been  advertised,  why  not  frankly  ac- 
cept the  situation,  and  call  upon  Mr.  Holloway  to  save  his 
country  ?  His  name  is  a  household  word  where  Gladstone  and 
Disraeli  have  never  been  heard  of  ;  his  might  and  majesty  and 
the  cures  he  has  made  are  written  in  every  newspaper  in  the 
world.  If  this  does  not  make  a  claim,  what  does  ?  And 
then,  as  I  say,  you  are  not  obliged  to  take  his  pills. 


CHAPTER  LX. 

At  Sea,  16th  October. 
It  is  humiliating  to  find  what  elementary  diflSculties  crop  up 
for  the  first  time  when  you  actually  try  to  do  anything — a 
thing  which,  so  long  as  you  only  talked  of  it,  seemed  the 
simplest  in  all  the  world.  Here  am  I  who  have  set  my  heart 
on  an  Irish  stew.  I  have  got  the  recipe  to  make  it — **  Two 
pounds  and  a  half  of  chops"  (how  am  I  to  eat  two  pounds  and 
a  half  of  chops  ?),  "  eight  potatoes"  (that  seems  a  small  allow- 
ance for  so  many  chops),  "and  four  small  onions;  stew  for 
two  hours,  and  serve  hot,"  which  last  direction  assumes  us  all 
to  be  mad  enough  to  serve  it  cold.  Well,  I  have  had  Phil  up 
on  the  quarter-deck,  and  read  all  this  to  him,  when  he  asks  me 
"  When  he's  to  put  them  onions  in  ?"  "  When  !  why  with  all 
the  rest  of  course — at  least  I  suppose  so."  "  But  all  the  good- 
ness of  'em  '11  boil  away."  Of  course  I  couldn't  admit  this, 
and  held  him  to  putting  everything  in  together.  But  suppose, 
now,  that  all  the  goodness  does  boil  away!  It  will  be  very 
hard  on  me,  for,  in  fact,  it  is  precisely  those  onions  that  give 
the  thing  its  flavor.     I  wonder  when  you  ought  to  put  them  in, 


FLOTSAM   AND  JETSAM.  223 

This  Phil  is  a  perfect  revolutionist  in  a  ship,  with  his  ques- 
tions.    I  don't  believe  it  matters  a  bit. 

****** 

I  have  often  marvelled  how  it  is  that  this  blessed  and  bounti- 
ful Solitude,  consoling  mistress  of  men  and  mother  of  all  great 
things  as  she  is,  should  be  so  maligned.  For  even  her  worst 
enemies  court  her  whenever  they  are  moved  into  action.  No 
man  cares  to  have  a  company  about  him  when  he  is  very  joyful 
or  very  sorrowful,  very  much  in  love,  very  full  of  hate,  very  de- 
termined, or  even  very  drunk.  If,  therefore,  he  shuns  solitude 
as  a  rule,  it  is  that,  as  a  rule,  he  lives  a  pale  colorless  life,  so 
devoid  of  occupation  that  he  must  needs  look  upon  many  faces 
in  order  to  fill  the  void,  and  cause  him  to  forget  that  there  is 
a  void.  But  what  is  amusing  is  the  notion,  that  for  one  unoc- 
cupied and  objectless  man  to  look  upon  another  is  in  itself  an 
object  and  an  occupation.  This  reminds  me  of  those  Chinese 
boxes  fitted  exactly  one  inside  the  other.  You  open  them  all 
to  the  last,  and  in  that  you  find — nothing. 

****** 

'  Every  one  for  himself  and  God  for  us  all."  Very  fine,  no 
doubt,  is  this  modern  gospel,  made,  like  the  razors,  to  sell,  to  a 
generation  which  believes  in  self-interest  well  understood — 
•which  is  to  say  understood  as  self-interest.  But  now  if  that 
topmast  goes,  or  that  standing  rigging  betrays  me,  as  this 
stanchion  has  done  which  has  come  away  in  my  hand  with  a 
heavy  lurch  of  the  ship,  will  the  shipwright  be  guiltless  who 
supplied  them  ?  Of  course  he  will,  you  reply  ;  for  I  ought  not 
to  have  trusted  him  or  anybody,  and  ought  to  have  examined, 
tried,  and  tested  all  sticks  and  ropes  before  I  paid  for  them. 
I  thank  you. 

****** 

Off  Shoreham,  l7th  October. 
Judging  from  what  I  have  read  even  of  the  most  favored 
heroes,  I  should  suppose  that  to  wait  for  the  woman  one  adores 
jnust  be  trying  ;  but  I  doubt  it  is  quite  as  trying  to  be  laid  to 


224  FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM. 

at  nightfall  off  your  port,  as  I  now  ara,  with  a  heavy  sea,  the 
wind  dead  on  the  shore,  and  blowing  harder  every  minute,  and 
no  chance  of  getting  in  under  five  hours  at  least.  There  has 
been  every  appearance  of  what  sailors  call  "  dirt" — last  night 
an  immense  "  burr"  or  ring  round  the  moon,  this  morning 
another  round  the  sun,  and  a  strong  southerly  wind  all  day. 
It  is  a  question  whether  we  hadn't  better  go  to  sea  again,  for 
if  the  bad  weather  which  is  coming  comes  too  soon,  we  shall 
have  what  Ned  calls  a  job  of  it,  since ,  I  am  forced  to  admit 
secretly  to  myself  that  the  Billy  Baby  would  not  claw  off  a 
lee-shore  at  this  distance. 

In  this  situation  I  remark,  for  the  thousandth  time,  the  tre- 
mendous consolation  there  is  in  the  uncertainty  of  life  and  our 
ignorance  of  the  future.  The  troubles  one  foresees  from  any 
distance  are  never  those  that  happen,  the  misfortunes  one  fears 
are  never  those  that  overtake  one.  Your  human  providence  is 
always  at  fault.  You  provide  for  being  run  over  by  this 
omnibus,  and  you  get  drowned  at  sea  ;  you  fear  you  will  not 
live  through  that  gale,  and  a  tile  falls  on  your  head  ;  you  mourn 
over  the  infidelity  of  your  lady  love,  and  the  misery  that  over- 
takes you  is  that  you  marry  a  vixen.  And  as  the  worst  part 
of  all  trouble  is  the  apprehension  of  it,  it  is  a  comfort  to  re- 
member that  those  of  which  we  have  had  the  most  lively  ap- 
prehension are  precisely  those  we  have  escaped.  Wherefore  I 
opine  that  we  shall  get  in  all  right,  and  I  shall  turn  in  and 
make  up  by  a  nap  for  being  up  all  last  night. 


CHAPTER  LXI. 

At  Sea,  24th  October. 
Ah,  yes  !     There  is  comfort  and  consolation  in    this  dear 
cherished  Mother  Nature  in  all  her  moods,  and,  I  often  think, 
more  of  it  in  those  of  her  jnoods  from  which  men  ^vert  their 


FLOTSAM  AKD  JETSAM.  22o 

faces  than  in  the  rest.  Look  with  me,  look  at  this  sea,  kissed 
into  passion  by  the  strong  breath  of  the  gale.  Look  at  that 
angry  red  streak  of  sky  that  announces  the  long-wished-for 
day.  Look  at  the  torn  rift  that  scours  overhead,  and  the  dark 
masses  of  squall-cloud  lying  on  either  hand,  racing  over  the 
water  and  the  coast,  with  their  burden  of  rain  and  wind. 
Look  at  those  w^aves  which  no  man  of  the  millions  who  have 
tried  it  has  ever  yet  described,  or  given  a  notion  of  their  in- 
finite play,  their  infinite  change,  and  power,  and  color  ;  look 
at  them  with  me,  tired  with  a  night's  watching,  anxious  about 
the  ship,  full  of  work  changing  and  reefing  sails — look  at  them 
all  and  say  if  you  can  resist  their  beauty,  or  not  see  that  in 
them  is  tbe  very  face  and  voice  of  the  Eternal.  Praise  to  Him 
who  has  given  us  these  glimpses  of  majesty  which  alone  make 
us  to  know  our  own  nothingness,  and  which  ever  remind  us 
that  it  is  all  very  good,  and  that  we  have  only  to  go  and  look 
upon  it  to  know  that.  How  dull,  foolish,  and  flat  are  the 
things  that  man  has  made  out  of  such  rags  as  he  has  stolen  from 
the  elements,  in  the  presence  of  the  elements  themselves  ;  how 
antique,  moth-eaten,  and  rusted  all  his  inventions  when  you  take 
the  very  best  of  them,  and  think  of  them  now  in  the  presence 
of  this  eternal  beauty,  force  and  youth,  which  are  always  at 
our  doors,  and  which  we  all  love,  and  all  are  affected  by, 
though  we  do  pretend  to  despise  it  as  an  old  dust  heap.  Yes, 
indeed,  it  is  good  for  us  to  be  here. 

*  *  nf  *  *  * 

It  is  very  humiliating,  this  love  of  little  children,  when  one 
comes  to  think  of  it.  For  if  we  find  our  fellows  are  more 
lovable  in  the  child  than  in  the  man,  it  must  mean  that  we 
know  them  to  be  essentially  and  innately  unlovable,  and  only 
to  be  really  worthy  of  affection  before  their  essential  and  in- 
nate qualities  have  had  time  to  become  developed.  A  good 
fruit  is  best  when  it  is  ripe  ;  but  mankind,  we  conclude,  are 
best  when  they  are  unripe.  The  very  qualities  that  charm  in 
the  child  in  their  immaturity,  are  precisely  those  that  disgust 
in  the  grown  man  in  their  maturity.     A  little  selfishness,  a 


226  FLOTSAM   AND  JETSAM. 

little  gluttony,  a  little  ungenerosity,  artlessly  and  sliainelessly 
shown  by  the  child,  appear  to  us  not  only  innocent,  but 
charming  ;  yet  those  same  qualities  when  developed  render  our 
fellows  odious  to  us,  and  all  the  more  odious  when  covered 
with  hypocrisy.  It  pleases  to  see  the  child  ape  the  worse  parts 
of  the  man  ;  it  revolts  to  see  the  man  ape  the  better  part  of 
the  child.     Possibly  we  misjudge  both. 

*  *  *  «r  4:  « 

Can  a  man  pray  who  does  not  believe  ?  Certainly  he  can, 
and  certainly  in  time  of  imminent  need,  if  at  no  other,  he  will. 
For  he,  too,  does  believe  in  something,  if  not  in  that  very 
thing  you  put  before  him  ;  and  he  will  pray  to  that  in  your 
formula,  while  all  the  time  he  is  praying  through  that  to  the 
thing  in  which  he  believes.  The  world  presses  upon  him, 
unknown  and  uncomprehended  powers  compass  him  about,  and 
if  in  his  anxious  yearning  he  finds  aught  near  at  hand  claiming 
to  be  a  symbol  of  the  Power  in  whose  hand  he  feels  himself  to 
be — ay,  even  though  it  be  the  rudest  and  most  manifest  fetich 
— he  will  pray  to  the  fetich  rather  than  not  pray  at  all,  and  if 
for  no  other  reason,  yet  for  this — that  he  does  not  know  but 
that  there  may  be  something  in  it. 

ly  Port,  26th  October. 
I  have  sometimes  idly  enough  wondered  whether  there  is 
really  anything  pleasurable  in  being  addressed  as  Sir  Tom, 
Sir  Dick,  My  Lord,  Your  Grace,  and  so  forth.  Because  that 
is  all  the  advantage  a  man  really  gets  out  of  being  one  whom 
his  Sovereign,  in  the  name  of  his  country,  has  delighted  to 
honor.  All  the  rest — the  sitting  above  the  salt,  the  best  cut  of 
the  joint,  the  arm-chair,  the  off-side  of  the  carriage,  and  the 
going  down  to  dinner  first  or  second,  instead  of  second  or  third 
— are  advantages  that  come  to  every  man  on  occasion,  and  are 
not  especial  to  the  honored  one  ;  the  one  only  advantage  that 
is  specially  and  exclusively  his,  is  his  being  called  out  of  the 
common.     Well,  now,  is  there  anything  in  it  ?     I  always  be- 


tLOTSAM  AND  JEtSAit.  227 

lieved  there  was  not — for  it  is  a  mere  notion,  or  more  prop- 
erly the  mere  notion  of  a  notion,  signifying  nothing  but  a 
belief  taken  on  trust  and  mostly  unfounded,  testifying  to  noth- 
ing but  a  falsehood,  exhaling  in  breath,  leaving  nothing  but  a 
melodious  twang  which  Sir  Tom  and  My  Lord  know  well  must 
be  a  discord  to  any  who  has  an  ear  for  music. 

So  I  have  always  said  to  myself  ;  yet  I  am  converted  from 
to-day  so  far  as  this,  that  I  am  come  near  to  understanding 
how  it  is  that  the  twang  is  melodious  to  its  beneficiary,  if  to 
nobody  else.  For  here,  at  a  large  French  watering-place,  I 
have  come  shamefacedly  into  the  largest  hotel,  a  kind  of  town 
in  itself,  and  have  found  myself  absolutely  its  one  sole  occu- 
pant besides  the  proprietor  and  the  waiters.  I  have  been  ac- 
customed to  see  two  hundred  people  dine  at  its  table  d'hote, 
and  when  I  asked  the  hour  of  dinner  to-day  I  was  requested  to 
fix  it  myself.  For  /  am  now  the  table  d'hote,  and,  amused  as 
I  am  at  myself,  I  can't  quite  forbear  a  sense  as  of  promotion  at 
this  distinction.  It  titillates  me  gently  and  caresses  me  to  be 
asked,  "  A  quelle  heure.  Monsieur,  voudra-t-il  la  table  d'hote  ?" 
and  I  verily  believe  that  if  the  same  prostration  before  me  of 
the  whole  physical,  spiritual,  and  culinary  resources  of  the 
place  were  habitually  repeated,  I  should  in  time  come  to 
believe  that  I  had  done  something  to  deserve  it  beyond  being 
the  only  guest.  What  surprises  me  now,  therefore,  is  that 
I  have  known  melodiously  twanged  men  who  have  not  believed 
this  of  themselves. 

V  5lC  V  W  "K  TNT 

*'  Go  where  you  will,  you  will  never  find  the  equal  of  what 
happens  every  day  in  this  world."  So  said  a  French  ^migr^, 
and  so  to  this  day  he  might  say.  Now  of  all  things  that  do 
happen  in  this  world,  the  affectation,  which  I  find  is  still 
common,  of  belief  in  the  reasoning  faculties,  and  of  readiness 
to  r,.  nit  things  in  general  to  their  decision  and  to  abide  by 
their  mandate— this  is  the  most  unmatched  ;  and  I  venture  to 
believe  that,  when  we  do  go  elsewhere,  we  shall  find  in  no 
sphere  or  planet,  or  any  one  of  these  countless  worlds  I  see 


228  FLOTSAM   AND  JETSAjt. 

above  me,  anything  like  it.  You  and  I  know  very  well  ttat 
we  judge  nothing  by  reason,  but  everything  by  the  sympathies, 
the  antipathies,  the  prejudices  perhaps,  which  that  series  of 
chance  events  called  our  education  has  brought  into  activity 
within  us,  A  matter  as  to  which  we  care  nothing,  and  which 
is  therefore  of  self-confessed  unimportance,  we  may  indeed 
hand  over  contemptuously  to  reason.  That  two  and  two  make 
four,  that  the  two  angles  of  a  triangle  are  greater  than  the 
third,  that  the  angle  of  incidence  is  equal  to  the  angle  of  re- 
flection, that  the  earth  revolves  on  its  axis — all  this  we  will  sub- 
mit to  abstract  investigation  and  decision  ;  for  we  care  nothing 
which  way  it  is  decided.  But  whether  this  man  is  honest 
Avhom  we  have  learned  to  hate,  or  that  woman  true  whom  we 
have  learned  to  love — these  are  questions  which  reason  shall 
not  touch,  and  which  shall  be  decided  at  any  rate  as  we  wish  ; 
in  other  words,  which  have  already  been  decided  for  us. 
In  despite  of  which,  we  will  go  on  declaring  that  we  are  reason- 
ing and  reasonable  animals,  whereas  in  truth  we  are  unreasona- 
ble, passionate,  sentimental  creatures,  and  nothing  more.  For 
which  let  God  be  praised  who  has  made  us  such,  and  man  be 
condemned  who,  even  in  this,  the  world's  senility,  has  never  dis- 
covered that  such  we  are. 


CHAPTER    LXII. 

On  Board  the  Billy  Baby, 

At  Sea,  November  20. 
There  is  this  great  advantage  in  cruising  about  during  the 
winter,  that  you  never  want  for  wind  ;  but  there  is  the  question 
whether  this  is  not  counterbalanced  by  your  having  sometimes 
too  much  of  it.  It  seems  hard  to  leave  one  of  these  tidal  ports, 
where  you  are  out-of-doors  at  once  and  can't  run  back,  with  a 
rising  glass  and  a  fine  fresh  northerly  breeze,  only  to  find  your- 


FLOTSAM   AND  JETSAM.  2^9 

self  reduced  within  a  couple  of  hours  to  taking  down  every  reef 
in  your  mainsail,  and  balancing  yourself  with  a  mere  spitfire 
jib.  Of  course  there  is  great  delight  in  the  feeling  that  you 
are  in  a  nice  comfortable  ship,  instead  of  being  on  some  cold 
bleak  hill  ashore,  in  a  railway-carriage,  or  in  the  street  of 
some  town  full  of  insecure  chimney-pots  ;  but  then  at  sea  you 
always  have  the  notion  of  something  worse  coming  than  you 
have  yet  had.  I  am  short-handed,  too,  having  lost  one  man  of 
my  crew,  which  amounts  to  forty  per  cent,  on  a  full  comple- 
ment of  two  and  a  half.  Phil  has  capsized  the  Irish  stew  once 
and  the  coffee  twice,  and  his  final  results  are  so  gritty  and  un- 
certain that  I  suspect  he  must  have  mopped  them  both  up 
together,  instead  of  separately,  to  put  them  back  into  the 
saucepan.  But  then  you  can't  have  everything  all  at  once. 
****** 

Sunday,  November  21. 

I  thought  we  never  should  get  that  anchor  this  morning — 
and  also  with  Ned  that  it  did  "  blow  uncommon  hard,"  and  I 
have,  besides,  a  mean  opinion  of  myself  for  shirking  the  Looe. 
But  you  may  prove  to  yourself  as  much  as  you  like — on  the 
chart — as  I  proved  to  myself  last  night,  that  you  have  only  to 
run  down  to  a  line  of  bearing  of  your  one  light  and  then  haul 
your  wind  to  be  safe  ;  you  may  demonstrate  this  most  clearly  ; 
and  yet  you  may  not  face  a  channel  half  a  mile  wide  on  a  pitch 
dark  night  with  such  a  breeze  blowing  as  there  was  then  and 
still  is.  In  such  circumstances  one  says  "  of  course  if  it  were 
necessary  I'd  try  it,"  but,  then,  what  is  to  be  the  measure  of 
the  necessity  ?  Ought  it  to  be  necessary  that  the  enemy  were 
bound  for  your  port,  and  you  sent  to  give  warning  ;  or  should 
it  not  be  sufficient  that  you  want  to  see  your  Sweetheart  six 
hours  earlier  ? 

3(C  IjC  ^  if!  ^  3}( 

Southampton,  Tuesday,  November  23. 
I  remember,  when  I  got  that  handsome  ninety  miles'  tow  in, 
a  dead  calm  this  summer,  being  ungrateful  enough  to  remark 


230  rtOfSAM   AifD  JEtSAlf. 

how  absolutely  useless  any  and  every  steamer  must  be  as  a 
school  of  seamanship.  There  was  the  monster  steaming  straight 
ahead,  and  I  hanging  on  to  her,  both  relieved  absolutely  from 
any  necessity  whatever  for  paying  that  constant,  unceasing, 
vigilant  attention  to  the  wind  and  the  weather  which  makes  the 
good  sailor.  No  need  for  vigilance  in  this  respect,  no  need 
for  foresight,  no  need  for  shifts  and  devices,  no  need  for  readi- 
ness of  resource — the  whole  science  of  seamanship,  as  I  felt, 
had  disappeared,  and  in  its  place  there  was  nothing  left  but  a 
stoker  and  a  steersman.  Mind  there  was  none,  and  no  neces- 
sity for  it  beyond  this  ;  for  although  in  the  original  contrivance 
of  the  steam  machinery  there  had  been  a  mind,  this  had  been 
left  ashore,  and  here  at  sea  there  remained  of  it  nothing  but 
the  rote- know  ledge  of  the  formula  of  stop-cocks,  stoke-holes, 
and  oil-cans.  The  charm  of  the  thing  was  gone,  one  might  as 
well  be  ashore,  and  I  vowed  that  I  would  never  be  towed  again. 
And  I  have  seen  now,  within  a  very  few  hours,  two  striking 
proofs  that  steam  is  the  end  of  seamanship.  Yesterday  after- 
noon I  passed  a  large  screw  collier  most  inexcusably  run  ashore 
on  Calshot  Spit,  close  to  the  castle,  where  she  had  no  earthly 
business  to  get,  with  Calshot  Light  to  guide  her,  either  by  day 
or  by  night  ;  and  this  morning  I  had  the  delight  of  seeing  a 
huge  German  Lloyd's  steamer  coming  down  from  Southampton 
also  run  plump  ashore  opposite  Netley.  The  point  is,  that 
there  was  no  kind  of  excuse  to  be  conceived  for  either  one  of 
these  two  blunders,  and  that  they  were  both  precisely  the  sort 
of  blunders  which  could  not  occur  to  any  man  with  a  proper 
seaman's  training.  I  am  only  sorry  that  they  have  both  got 
off  apparently  without  much  damage.  But  if  such  things  are 
done  when  there  is  not  any  excuse,  what  must  be  done  every 
day  when  there  is  ? 


FLOTSAM   AISTD  JETSAM.  231 


CHAPTER  LXIII. 

On  Board  the  Billy  Babt, 

29th  November. 

I  KNEW  a  man  who  had  found  the  two  only  pearls  of  price 
— a  true  friend,  and  a  good  brave  woman.  To  the  woman  he 
plighted  his  troth,  to  his  friend  he  wrote  to  ask  for  a  blessing  ; 
and  then  he  saw  what  it  was  to  have  such  an  one.  For  the 
friend  wrote  him  thus — a  letter  which  should  be  printed  in  let- 
ters of  gold,  and  given  for  a  fortune  to  every  hesitating  pair  in 
England  : 

"  Yes,  God  bless  you,  and  guard,  and  guide,  and  prosper 
you — a  form  of  prayer  which  I  have  never  offered  up  to  God 
but  for  my  own  wife  ;  and  if  the  girl  you  have  chosen  is  in  the 
future  but  one  half  the  joy  and  pride  that  mine  has  been  to 
me,  you  will  have  drawn  the  great  prize  in  the  lottery  of  life 
— a  prize  to  which  no  other  prizes  are  to  be  compared.  My 
heart  would  have  broken  but  for  the  most  beautiful  and  sus- 
taining love  of  my  wife.  I  should  go  out  into  the  highways 
and  byways  and  preach  marriage  to  all  men,  in  simple  honesty 
and  good-will  toward  my  fellow-creatures,  knowing  what  mar- 
riage has  been  to  me.  Heaven  only  knows  what  would  have 
become  of  me  but  for  a  tenderness  which  has  never  tired,  a 
devotion  which  has  never  failed  me,  and  which  has  had  in  it 
something  surely  divine. 

"Sol  say  with  all  my  heart  *  God  bless  you  ! '  again  and 
again  ;  and  be  of  good  courage.  You  will  not  want  much 
money  if  you  have  much  love.  It  is  the  right  and  duty  of  a 
man  to  support  his  wife,  and  it  is  better  for  both  of  them  that 
he  should  be  in  every  respect  the  head  and  mainstay  of  the 
family.  There  is  nothing  to  fear  in  poverty  when  a  man's 
heart  is  whole  and  his  affections  satisfied.  I  was  for  a  short 
time,  as  you  know,  very  poor,  and  nothing  has  ever  impressed 
me  more  forcibly  than  the  fact  that  poverty,  when  it  came  so 
close,  had  no  terrors  for  me.     Moreover,  the  possibilities  of 


238  FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM. 

life  are  infinite,  and  no  man  of  enterprise,  intelligence,  and 
character  need  be  poor.  You  and  your  wife  will  never  be  poor, 
and  the  only  counsel  I  would  give  you,  the  outcome  of  years 
and  experience,  is  '  Cultivate  your  affections  and  till  your 
hearts.'  There  is  no  harvest  so  bounteous  as  that  of  love. 
Let  no  shadows  come  between  you,  no  sulks,  no  misunder- 
standings, and  no  unkind  words.  Accustom  yourselves  (using 
a  sort  of  resolute  mental  force  when  required,  and  it  will  be  re- 
quired) to  look  upon  each  other  as  perfection.  You  are  sure 
to  have  something,  perhaps  much,  to  forgive  each  other  as 
time  rolls  on.  Well,  forgive — forgive  freely — and  with  that 
sweet  eager  grace  which  forgives  beforehand,  and  which  offers 
assurance  and  warranty  of  all  future  forgiveness.  If  your  be- 
trothed is  very  young  be  careful  not  to  scare  away  her  trust. 
Encourage  her  to  tell  you  everything  ;  be  father,  mother, 
sister,  husband  to  her.  Approve  her  in  all  things,  that  she 
may  conceal  nothing,  and  lead  her  very  gently  away,  without 
reproof,  from  anything  which  may  displease  or  grieve  you. 

"  And  above  all  things,  I  would  say,  make  her  the  compan- 
ion of  your  thoughts.  Associate  her  both  with  your  business 
and  with  your  pleasures.  Let  her  have  no  idle,  listless  days, 
no  lonely  evenings.  Let  her  see  that  you  are  just  and  fair  in 
all  your  dealings  with  her,  so  that  when  she  compares  other 
men  with  you  she  may  feel  that  you  are  rather  a  hero  than  a 
man.  Teach  her  to  dress  in  her  best  and  bravest  for  you,  and 
make  her  glad  with  your  admiration,  so  that  all  her  life  long 
she  shall  hear  no  such  music  as  her  husband's  praise.  On  your 
part  also  dress  better  than  ever  you  did  in  your  life.  Marriage 
should  not  be  the  grave  of  Hope,  but  Hope's  garden. 

*'  Once  more,  God  bless  you  !" 


November  30. 
It  is  a  consoling  thought  which  should  alone,  and  of  itself, 
redeem  this  much-maligned  scheme  of  creation  from  all  the  evil 
that  is  so  hastily  spoken  of  it,  that  we  owe  all  our  misery  to 


FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM.  233 

ourselves  and  all  our  happiness  to  others.  If  I  do  my  duty  and 
act  up  to  my  warrant  as  fully  as  I  can  read  it,  even  if  that  be 
not  very  fully,  no  man  can  truly  take  away  by  peace  of  mind. 
He  may  sadden  me  for  a  time,  but  my  sadness  is  for  him  not 
for  myself,  and  bears  with  it  its  own  sure  antidote.  Say  he 
betrays  and  deserts  me,  deeply  injures  me,  ruins  me,  kills  me. 
/  know,  and  I  alone,  whether  he  does  any  of  these  things 
justly  ;  if  so,  I  know  then  that  I  am  the  cause  of  all  ;  if  not, 
it  will  be,  as  in  all  ages  to  all  men  it  has  been,  a  sufficient  con- 
olation  to  know  that  I  suffer  unjustly,  that  I  am  punished 
without  cause — and  then  I  cannot  be  truly  miserable. 

And  now,  just  as  there  is  something — and  not  a  small  thing 
either,  for  I  know  it — of  pleasure  in  the  worst  earthly  misery, 
so  there  seems  to  be  something  of  poison  in  the  best  earthly 
happiness.  You  have  struck  the  sweet  note,  it  answers  to  the 
touch,  and  now  even  while  your  ears  drink  in  the  full,  round, 
beautiful  sound,  you  are  aware  of  that  after-twang  which  is  as 
a  vibration  of  pain.  There  shall  be  a  man  who  is  drunk  with 
happiness — with  happiness  of  the  purest  and  most  unalloyed 
kind — and  that  man  as  he  walks  through  the  streets  shall  be 
moved  with  tears  to  see  all  those  men  and  women  going  about 
their  avocations,  and  to  know  that  they  cannot  be  as  happy 
as  he. 


CHAPTER  LXIV. 

On  Board  the  Billy  Baby, 

20th  December. 
Say  what  you  will,  it  is  a  fine  thing  to  be  married,  were  it 
only  that  it  always  seems  to  bring  with  it  the  lesson,  even  in 
the  merest  and  most  trifling  of  the  congratulations,  ay,  and  of 
the  presents  it  brings,  that  the  world  is  far  kinder  than  in  its 
usual  aspects  it  seems.     My  friend,  who  is  in  this  case,  has  re^ 


234  FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM. 

ceived  another  letter  from  his  friend,  and  it  is  so  true,  so  wise, 
and  so  touching,  that  I  give  it  here  ;  let  those  laugh  at  it  who 
can,  it  is  a  dower  any  bride  might  be  proud  of. 

"  December  3,  1875. 
**  My  Dear  Friend  : 

"  I  also  do  not  read  your  letters  unmoved.  It  brings  my 
own  youth  and  hopes  back  again  to  see  you  so  young  and  so 
;  brave.  And  what  you  say  is  right  about  the  fulness  of  happi- 
ness which  a  true-hearted  girl  brings  with  her  as  a  dower  from 
heaven.  Never  suffer  yourself  or  her  to  forget  that  there  is 
nothing  really  worth  having  in  this  world  but  love — for  love  is 
joy,  and  neither  money  nor  the  gains  of  ambition  have  the  taste 
.  of  pleasure  in  them.  Money  makes  all  but  very  high-hearted 
folk  intolerably  impudent ;  ambitious  dreams  realized  make 
men  either  proud  or  sad — bumptious  if  they  are  selfish,  sad  if 
they  sought  for  power  as  a  means  of  doing  good,  and  find 
themselves  as  impotent  as  before  when  they  have  got  but  the 
shadow  of  it,  which  is  all  that  can  be  had  in  this  world. 

"  Therefore,  cling  firmly  all  your  life  long  to  the  home  affec- 
tions. There  will  be  always  peace  at  your  own  hearth  if  you 
seek  it  honestly.  There  is  no  peace  elsewhere  ;  and  it  seems 
to  me  as  though  a  man  should  go  forth  to  his  daily  labor  as  to 
a  task  which  he  must  do,  and  return  home  to  cast  up  his  ac- 
counts with  God  at  night.  There,  when  the  flowers  cluster 
round  his  open  window,  and  the  pet  bird  sings  in  summer-time, 
or  when  the  curtains  are  drawn,  and  the  sea-coal  burns  in  the 
familiar  fireplace  on  winter  evenings,  while  the  disinherited 
and  the  miserable  wander  homeless  through  the  dark  cold 
without,  he  may  thank  the  Giver  of  all  good  for  exceptional 
grace  and  mercy  with  a  very  humble  spirit,  and  ask  his  wife  to 
help  him  while  they  search  if  they  have  not  soothed  some 
human  anguish,  dried  some  tear,  and  made  some  one  happier 
I  or  better  since  last  they  lay  down  to  rest.  If  they  have,  their 
slumbers  will  be  very  light,  for  they  will  sleep  beneath  the  smile 
of  God. 


FLOTSAM  AND   JETSAM.  235 

**  And  now  let  me  say  to  you  that  if  you  ■will  take  me  for  a 
guide  in  life  while  I  remain  here,  there  is  nothing  which  I 
would  more  earnestly  commend  to  you  than  the  daily  practice 
of  prayer.  Never  go  to  your  work  or  return  from  it,  never  sit 
down  to  your  table  or  rise  from  it,  without  a  brief  appeal  or 
thanksgiving  to  heaven.  You  will  find  that  piety  will  thus 
become  a  habit  to  you,  and  that  the  practice  of  reading  the 
lessons  for  the  day  every  morning  will  give  a  nobler  key-note 
to  your  mind.  It  will  put  your  thoughts  in  harmony  with 
those  of  all  wise  and  good  men,  and  with  all  worthy  woman- 
hood. It  will  be  of  infinite  comfort  to  you  in  those  times  of 
trial  when  all  of  us  must  pay  tribute  to  our  mortality.  It  will 
give  you  fortitude  in  adversity,  and  secure  you  in  prosperity. 

"  When  you  remember  this  counsel,  dear  boy,  as  I  trust  you 
will  do,  even  should  you  reject  it  for  a  time,  think  of  it,  not  as 
the  advice  of  a  pedant  or  a  churchman,  but  as  the  innermost 
thought  which  a  world-worn  old  diplomatist  expressed  to  a 
friend  whom  he  loved,  and  in  whose  welfare  and  career  he  took 
a  very  tender  and  true  interest. 

"  Some  fifteen  years  ago  I  was  very  intimate  with  the  late 
Baron  Prokesch-Osten,  then  Austrian  Internunico  at  Constan- 
tinople. He  was  one  of  the  best  and  wisest  men  I  have  every 
known,  and  he  was  then  seventy-five  years  old.  I  remember 
he  once  said  to  me,  *  There  is  nothing  true  but  Christianity, 
and  every  really  able  man  I  have  ever  known  has  arrived  sooner 
or  later  at  this  conclusion.'  Bear  it,  therefore,  steadily  in 
mind,  and  recollect  that  it  comes  to  you  from  two  generations 
of  diplomatists,  who  both  agreed  with  the  priests." 
****** 

In  craft  of  my  size  it  is  a  usual  thing,  when  you  have  let  go 
the  anchor,  for  all  hands  to  go  ashore  and  get  drunk,  leaving 
the  vessel  to  look  after  herself.  Nevertheless,  I  have  been 
taught  in  the  course  of  my  nautical  education  that  the  anchor- 
watch  is  of  great  importance,  and  that  not  only  should  there 
always  be  a  hand  on  deck  to  tend  her  when  she  swings,  and, 
if  necessary,  to  hoist  a  bit  of  sail  that  she  may  cast  the  right 


236  .    FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM. 

way,  hut  that  there  are  many  possible  events  to  he  provided  for 
even  in  the  best  anchorages — such  as  another  vessel  running 
into  you — which  require  constant  attention  for  their  avoidance. 
Yet  it  is  hard  to  get  this  into  one's  head,  and,  anchored 
here  as  we  are  in  the  most  quiet  and  peaceable  of  rivers 
preparatory  to  laying  up,  it  seems  impossible  to  suppose  but 
that  all  we  have  to  do  now  is  to  go  ashore  and  amuse  our- 
selves, retaining  only  the  memory  of  our  cruises  for  fireside 
yarns. 

At  any  rate  here,  for  the  present,  is  an  end  of  Flotsam  and 
Jetsam.  It  has  been  often  foolish,  no  doubt,  sometimes  pre- 
sumptuous, and  betimes  flat  and  dull.  Perhaps,  nevertheless, 
it  may  have  interested  some  as  being  the  true  reflection  of  the 
derelict  thoughts  of  a  man  small  enough  himself,  but  brought 
betimes  into  contact  with  great  things,  and  feeling  somewhat 
the  greatness  of  them,  and  feeling  also,  and  at  the  same  time, 
the  constraining  influence  of  the  little  things  of  his  daily  life. 
They  are  not  very  unlike  that  man,  and  so  may  be  like  many 
another,  which,  if  it  be  so,  will  give  them  a  value  to  that  other 
as  though  he  himself  had  kept  such  a  disjointed,  often  mis- 
taken, and  always  to  be  corrected,  dead  reckoning  of  his 
course.  I  myself  cannot  look  back  to  them  without  a  certain 
feeling  of  tenderness  and  affection,  much  as  a  painter  might 
look  upon  an  ill-daubed,  unfinished  portrait  of  part  of  himself 
by  himself,  nor  without  the  same  kind  of  regret  both  that  the 
original  was  not  better,  and  that  the  portrait  was  not  better 
painted.  Yet  I  think  that,  if  ever  a  man  had  a  chance  of  see- 
ing what  he  himself  is  like,  it  is  when  he  is  living  by  himself 
in  this  kind  of  way,  or  in  some  way  like  it ;  and  that,  if  at 
all,  it  would  be  by  keeping  a  record  of  such  idle  thoughts  as 
are  here  put  down,  as  and  when  they  are  provoked  by  his  re- 
flections, his  work,  and  his  communion  with  Nature,  and  that 
better  part  of  man  which  is  found  in  books.  Doubtless,  these 
thoughts  are  not  sufficient  for  a  life,  yet  they  have  an  interest 
if  they  are  unforced  honest  thoughts  ;  and  possibly  figments 
of  the  brain  even  such  as  these,  floating  and  drifting  at  mercy 


^  FLOTSAM   AKD   JETSAil.  337 

as  they  have  done,  may  haply  be  picked   up  and  help  some 
mariner  to  piece  out  and  patch  up  his  ship. 

Once  more  I  hear  the  ripple  of  the  water  against  the  bows  of 
the  little  ship  that  has  carried  me  so  well,  and  been  my  one 
only  true  home  for  so  many  months  ;  once  more  I  have  that 
feeling  that  the  world  is  before  me  to  go  where  I  will,  and  no 
man  to  say  me  nay  ;  once  more  I  look  around  my  narrow 
limits  and  rejoice  in  them  as  those  of  my  own  kingdom.  In  a 
few  days  she  will  be  dismantled,  stripped,  her  white  wings 
gone,  her  crew  dispersed,  and  the  whole  economy  and  principle 
of  the  thing  changed.  It  is  as  a  kind  of  death  ;  yet,  as  the 
natural,  proper,  and  desirable  death,  which  is  a  passage  from  a 
good  world  and  a  happy  life  to  a  better  and  a  happier. 


CHAPTER  LXV. 

On  Board  the  Lively  Sally, 

CowES,  2d  December,  1881. 
You  may  say  what  you  like,  but  there  is  no  abode  for  rest, 
occupation,  sport,  variety,  and  interest  like  a  good  stout  ship. 
When  I  think  of  people  staying  in  country  houses  to  shoot 
poultry,  and  of  other  people  living  in  town  and  going  to  plays 
and  fancying  that  they  are  making  the  best  of  their  lives — I 
can  only  wonder  that  they  should  content  themselves  with  such 
things,  when  they  might  be  comfortably  installed  in  a  fifty-ton 
cutter  bound  for  a  pleasant  winter's  cruise.  Houses,  no  doubt, 
are  to  some  extent  necessary  evils.  There  are  women,  chil- 
dren, parsons,  politicians,  and  other  weak  vessels  to  be  pro- 
vided for  ;  there  are  spare-sails,  spars,  blocks,  and  gear  that 
have  to  be  kept  in  store  ;  and  of  course  there  are  nautical 
almanacs  and  other  things  which  can  conveniently  be  attended  to 
ashore.     But  what  is  so  odd  is  that  even  iu  this  country,  which 


238  FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM. 

calls  itself  maritime,  there  are  people  who  fancy  that  a  house 
is  the  best  place  to  live  in,  and  that  a  ship  is  merely  a 
contrivance  for  making  occasional  journeys  in  fine  weather  ! 
Of  course  the  only  thing  to  be  done  for  such  people  is 
either  to  elect  them  Members  of  Parliament  or  to  pray  for 
them. 

Meantime  here  we  are  all  ready  for  a  start  across  the  Bay. 
The  water  is  filled  ;  there  are  potatoes  and  cunningly-preserved 
meats  and  three  live  ducks  on  board  ;  there  is  a  splendid 
moon,  which  must  by  no  means  be  wasted,  at  a  time  when  the 
night  lasts  for  sixteen  hours  out  of  the  twenty-four — and  as  a 
matter  almost  of  course  the  wind  hangs  in  the  one  quarter  that 
won't  do  for  us.  One  would  imagine  that  after  blowing  from 
the  S.W.  for  a  month  on  end,  it  would  show  some  signs  of 
change — but  so  far  nothing  will  move  it.  Every  day  we  flatter 
ourselves  we  detect  hopeful  signs  of  its  going  round  to  the 
westward,  and  so  up  to  N.  or  N.E.  It  ought  to  do  so,  for 
during  the  last  three  days  the  barometer  has  been  steadily  ris- 
ing ;  yet  it  is  still  nailed  fast  in  the  old  quarter,  and  every 
harbor  on  the  south  coast  is  full  of  wind-bound  vessels,  bound, 
like  ourselves,  down  Channel.  There  are  a  score  here  from 
the  biggest  to  the  littlest,  and  you  may  see  the  crews  loafing 
about  ashore  in  that  aimless  way  which  marks  the  sailor  who 
is  hung  up  by  the  weather.  Then  the  Yankees  have  promised 
us  another  hurricane  between  to-day  and  the  day  after  to-mor- 
row !  Will  it  come  ?  I  doubt  it ;  but  certainly  the  weathei 
is  wild  and  far  from  encouraging.  In  sheer  desperation  we  re- 
call experiences  of  how,  when  the  wind  backs  too  much  and 
gets  beyond  S.,  it  sometimes  tumbles,  as  it  were,  over  the 
edge,  and  gets  into  the  finer  quarter  in  spite  of  itself.  We 
cheerfully  reflect  that  it  can't  blow  forever,  and  that  unless 
there  is  an  extraordinary  stock  of  spare  wind  somewhere  we 
must  soon  get  to  the  end  of  it.  Finally  Dick,  the  mate,  who 
is  of  a  somewhat  despondent  turn,  remarked  to-day  that  he 
thought,  he  did,  that  there  * '  must  be  an  easterly  wind  just  at 
the  back  of  this  here  ;"  and,  in  short,  we  have  pretty  well  hoped 


FLOTSAM   AN^D  JETSAM.  239 

ourselves  into  a  conviction  that  there  will  be  a  change  to- 
morrow. 

The  smart  triflers  who  so  admire  Cowes  during  the  fine  fort- 
night of  the  year,  would  hardly  know  it  in  winter.  All  that 
hoisting  and  hauling  down  of  bunting,  ringing  of  bells,  and 
pulling  ashore  in  four-oared  gigs,  which  is  supposed  to  repre- 
sent the  whole  art  of  navigation  and  seamanship,  is  entirely 
absent.  In  the  roads  there  lie  no  dapper  yachts,  but  only  a 
few  disconsolate  chassemarees,  a  Norwegian  bark  with  her  bul- 
warks and  boats  carried  away,  and  her  royals  and  top-gallant 
sails  hanging  in  ribbons  from  the  yards.  The  yacht  skipper, 
elegantly  bound  in  brass,  no  longer  is  seen  on  the  shore,  and 
the  Squadron  Club-house  is  a  scene  of  desolation,  presided  over 
by  William  and  a  strong  body  of  painters  and  other  British 
workmen.  In  the  streets  you  meet  a  few  uncouth  men  inartis- 
tically  clad  in  sea-boots  and  mufflers,  who  have  come  ashore 
from  the  wind-bound  vessels  in  the  roads  ;  beyond  that  the 
place  is  deserted,  and  might  be  Falmouth  or  any  other  real  sea- 
port for  all  its  appearance. 

The  Lively  Sally  is  the  very  picture  of  what  a  fifty-ton  cutter 
should  be.  She  is  what  would  be  called  a  thoroughly  "  whole- 
some" vessel.  In  form,  and  in  the  smallness  of  her  mast  and 
spars,  she  would  remind  you  of  a  North  Sea  smack,  and,  as  to 
sea-going  qualities,  she  would  drown  three  quarters  of  the 
yachts  and  five  eighths  of  the  big  steamers  afloat.  She  is  put 
together  like  a  light-ship  for  strength,  and  she  is  found  as  very 
few  vessels  are,  everything  being  about  as  big  and  as  strong 
again  as  is  usually  the  case  with  the  fine-weather  yacht.  Her 
crew  are  not  yachtsmen — they  are  sailors,  which  is  quite  another 
thing — and  she  is  kept  with  the  utmost  jealousy  and  perfection. 

As  for  me,  I  am  only  a  passenger  on  board.  The  effect  of 
this  position  is  to  make  one  feel  that  the  vessel  may  do  any- 
thing and  go  anywhere,  since  one  is  not  responsible.  This  is 
a  pleasant  sensation,  but  I  have  not  yet  quite  arrived  at  the 
stage  of  being  on  board  ship  without  feeling  ready  to  turn  out 
and  be  on  deck  at  a  moment's  notice. 


340  FLOTSAM  AKD  JETSAM. 

3d  December. 
The  wind  has  taten  up  from  the  S.E. ;  but  there  is  scarce 
any  of  it  ;  so  we  give  it  another  day. 

4th  December, 
Now  we  really  are  off. 

Monday,  6th  December. 

Not  a  bit  of  it.  We  are  not  off  at  all,  but  still  here. 
Being  only  a  passenger  I  am  of  course  impatient  ;  but  still  I 
can  understand  and  sympathize  with  the  skipper.  I  know  well 
the  effort  required  to  come  to  a  decision  in  the  face  of  unprom- 
ising signs,  and  the  temptation  to  hold  on  till  they  look  better. 
Here  we  have  the  captain  of  the  port  with  assurances  that  the 
wind  is  S.  W.  outside,  and  doleful  accounts  of  vessels  that 
have  just  come  in  ;  Dick  saying  he  don't  like  the  looks  of  it, 
he  don't  ;  the  bread  not  on  board  and  he  bakers  not  yet  out  of 
bed  ;  the  barometer  a  shade  on  the  fall  ;  that  Yankee  predic- 
tion ;  the  wind  sensibly  getting  back  to  the  south  even  in  here 
— and  now  there's  a  good  hour  of  the  ebb  tide  gone — oh,  hang 
it,  we'll  hang  on  for  another  day  and  see  what  the  morning 
brings.  We  shall  be  quite  ready  then,  and  can  go  out  at  once. 
So  that's  off  one's  mind.  After  all  you  must  be  somewhere, 
and  better  here  than  thrashing  about  outside  and  making  no 
progress.  We'll  see  if  we  can't  get  that  stove  to  draw  a  bit, 
and  make  ourselves  comfortable. 

What  one  really  wants  in  order  to  start  with  confidence  is  a 
number  of  conditions,  all  together.  1.  The  wind  must  be  in 
any  quarter  but  the  S.W.  2.  But  it  must  not  be  W.,  because 
you  have  got  to  go  down  channel.  3.  Nor  S.,  because  that 
breeds  "dirt."  4.  Nor  S.  E.,  because  you  never  knew  that 
come  to  any  good.  5.  In  fact,  it  must  be  N.  or  N.E.  6. 
And  it  must  have  got  into  that  quarter  through  W.  or  N.W. 
7.  And  the  barometer  must  be  high.  8.  But  not  too  high. 
9.  It  must  be  rising.  10.  But  not  too  fast.  11.  The  sky 
must  not  be  thick.  12.  And  yet  the  sun  must  not  be  glaring, 
for  that  is  a  bad  sign.     13.  The  Yankees  must  not  have  pre- 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM.  241 

dieted  anything.  14,  And  then,  if  we  go  on  too  long  with 
fine  weather,  there  will  be  another  breeze  due.  15.  Dick  must 
be  satisfied  with  the  look  of  things — which  never  happened 
yet.  16.  Bills  of  health,  bread,  meat,  water,  and  the  rest 
must  all  be  on  board.  17.  Then  there's  the  moon  ;  you  must 
have  that,  these  long  nights.  18.  But  by  the  time  you  get 
the  weather  and  Dick  and  the  provisions  into  order,  there  is 
no  moon  left. 

In  short,  there  are  so  many  conditions,  that  if  one  insists  on 
having  them  all  favorable  in  the  middle  of  winter,  one  runs 
great  risk  of  never  getting  away  at  all.  But  we  shall  get  some 
of  them,  and  chance  the  rest,  I  suppose. 


CHAPTER  LXVI. 

On  Board  the  Lively  Sally, 
At  Sea,  Sunday,  11th  December,  1881. 

*'  Well,  there's  one  thing,  we  kin  go  out  if  so  be  as  you 
like." 

This  was  Dick's  not  very  encouraging  way  of  summing  up 
the  situation  when,  last  Tuesday,  the  Skipper  had  hardened  his 
heart  and  got  under  way  with  the  wind  still  in  the  S.  W. ,  and 
when  we  had  got  as  far  as  Yarmouth.  It  certainly  looked 
dirty,  and  the  collation  of  various  opinions,  including  mine, 
for  putting  our  nose  out,  ended  in  our  bearing  up,  running 
back  to  Cowes,  and  anchoring  once  more  in  the  roads.  I  am 
bound  to  testify  that  the  event  fully  justified  the  Skipper,  for  in 
the  evening  it  blew  a  whole  gale  from  S.W. 

The  odd  thing  about  it  all  is,  that  while  things  have  been  so 
bad  the  barometer  has  been  high  and  steady.  In  fact,  as  Dick 
says,  "  the  weather  fare  to  beat  the  glasses,"  Last  night, 
however,  there  came  a  fog,  and  the  wind  began  at  length  to 
blow  from  the  northward.     Therewith  the  glass  fell,  but  this 


242  VLOTSAM   AKD   JETSAM. 

morning  the  wind  stood  and  freshened,  and  driving  snow 
seemed  to  promise  a  real  beginning  of  winter.  So  at  half-past 
ten  we  set  our  snug  trysail  and  sqtiaresail  and  got  under  way  ; 
this  time  for  a  real  start.  The  snow  whitened  the  uplands  of 
the  Isle  of  Wight,  and  made  everything  so  thick  that  we  could 
barely  see  a  mile.  Sea-boots  and  oil-skins  and  thick  woollens 
tinderneath  notwithstanding,  one  felt — as  indeed  one  always 
does  at  sea — shrivelled  up  to  nothing,  and  as  though  one 
had  nothing  on  that  nothing.  By  half-past  one  we  were 
abreast  of  the  Needles,  and,  carrying  a  fine  slashing  breeze 
with  us,  we  made  Portland  lights  at  half -past  five,  and  by  half- 
past  one  this  morning  were  four  miles  off  the  Start,  whence 
we  took  our  departure,  bade  good-by  to  the  land,  and  set  the 
course  W.S.W. 

As  I  have  said,  I  am  upon  this  occasion  not  in  command, 
but  only  a  passenger  ;  yet  I  am  expected  to  work  my  passage, 
and  it  is  my  business  to  keep  the  reckoning.  To-day  I  have 
worked  it  up  to  noon  with  the  result  that  there  is  only  half  a 
mile  difference  between  my  latitude  by  observation  and  by 
dead-reckoning.  The  wind  is  steady  at  about  N.N.E.,  and  as 
the  weather  looks  tine  the  Skipper,  on  my  representation,  has 
indulged  in  the  dangerous  extravagance  of  a  single-reefed 
mainsail,  which  is  against  his  principles,  for  he  maintains,  and 
with  good  reason,  that  it  is  not  sound  cutter-sailing  to  run 
under  a  mainsail  in  the  winter  time  in  this  part  of  the  world. 

Monday,  12th  December. 
Our  reckoning  to-day  puts  us  sixty-five  miles  west  of 
Ushant.  This  is  a  good  berth  off  in  all  conscience,  and  in 
these  days  of  steam,  when  it  is  the  fashion  to  go  from  point 
to  point  and  to  make  all  the  lights,  it  may  seem  that  we  are 
too  far  to  the  westward.  If  it  were  a  mistake  it  would  be  one 
on  the  right  side,  for  I  need  not  tell  the  inhabitants  of  a  mari- 
time country  that  it  is  not  the  sea,  but  the  land,  that  is  dan- 
gerous to  the  navigator.  It  is,  however,  no  mistake  at  all,  but 
a  wise  precaution.     You  can't  get  too  far  to  the  westward  when 


FLOTSAM  AKD  JETSAM.  243 

crossing  the  Bay  in  a  sailing  vessel,  for  you  then  have  every- 
thing under  command.  And  especially  is  it  well  to  be  far  out- 
side Ushant  and  Finisterre,  for  about  those  points  there  is 
almost  always  bad,  thick  weather. 

We  are  now  fairly  at  sea.  The  big  Atlantic  billows  are 
rolling  in  from  the  westward,  and  the  little  ship  rides  up  and 
down  their  sides,  now  perched  on  the  summit,  and  now  low 
down  far  below  view  of  the  horizon.  Our  deck  is  limited,  for 
there  are  the  two  boats  carried  on  it,  and  then  there  are  the 
three  white  ducks  who  pass  their  time  in  pecking  at  each  other 
and  quacking  over  their  mess  of  barley-meal.  One  hour  would 
be  very  like  another,  were  it  not  for  hauling  in  the  log,  mark- 
ing the  movements  of  the  barometer,  and,  above  all,  watching 
the  sky  for  signs  of  the  weather.  What  a  book  it  is  !  How 
rich,  how  changing  !  If  I  could  describe  our  sunrise  of  this 
morning  you  would  think  it  worth  while  to  come  here  on  the 
mere  chance  of  seeing  such  another.  The  gray  twilight,  the 
ruddier  dawn,  the  gold  and  purple-edged  masses  of  cloud  on 
the  horizon,  and  the  tinier  cloudlets  overhead  shepherded  by 
the  N.W.  wind  into  long  droves,  the  fresh  crispness  of  the  air, 
the  saltness  of  it,  the  purity  of  it,  the  sense  of  freedom  and 
ease  !  Ah  !  yes,  there  is  that  about  the  sea  which  no  land 
can  ever  give. 

At  Sea,  Wednesday,  14th  December. 

The  wind  has  got  round  into  the  old  quarter  of  S.  W. ;  the 
glass  is  falling  ;  it  is  thick  of  rain,  and  the  sea  is  getting  up. 
We  have  therefore  taken  in  the  mainsail,  and  got  snug  again 
under  the  trysail  and  third  jib.  The  sun  has  not  shown  him- 
self, and  so  we  have  no  observation  to-day,  but  the  dead-reck- 
oning puts  us  about  two  thirds  across  the  Bay,  and  well  out. 
The  little  ship  is  too  much  on  the  jump  to  permit  of  any 
triumphs  of  cookery  being  achieved,  and  our  dinner  has  been 
a  scratch  affair  of  cold  beef  and  sardines,  washed  down 
by  a  bottle  of  champagne.  But  we  have  killed  one  of  the 
white  ducks,  and  when  we  get  finer  weather  we  will  eat 
him. 


'Z4A:  PLOTMAM  A^D  J£TSAM. 

Thursday,  15th  December. 

No  sun  again  to-day,  and  therefore  no  observation.  The 
weather  is  of  that  disagreeable  kind  one  always  finds  about 
capes  like  Finisterre,  which  just  out  into  the  sea  ;  but  in  the 
night  the  wind  veered  to  N.N.E.,  and  it  is  now  steady, 
though  slight,  at  N.E.,  with  constant  squalls,  and  an  overcast 
and  threatening  sky. 

Friday,  16th  December. 

To-day  we  have  had  a  bit  of  a  dusting.  In  the  night  the 
wind  backed  to  the  dirty  old  quarter,  S.W.  There  was  one  of 
those  big  rings  round  the  moon  that  always  promise  bad 
weather,  and  the  sun  rose  very  red  and  threatening.  We  had 
put  ourselves— -by  dead-reckoning,  for  we  have  had  no  sun  at 
noon  since  Tuesday — a  good  seventy  miles  to  the  west  of  Cape 
Finisterre  ;  but  at  half-past  nine  this  morning  we  made  land, 
which  can  only  be  the  high  mountain  inside  of  that  cape,  dis- 
tant, as  far  as  we  can  judge,  no  more  than  thirty  miles.  This 
puts  us  no  less  than  forty  miles  to  the  eastward  of  our  dead- 
reckoning.  It  is  no  doubt  to  be  accounted  for  by  the  inset 
Into  the  Bay  of  Biscay,  which,  when  it  exists,  runs  at  the  rate 
of  a  mile  an  hour.  But,  as  it  does  not  always  exist,  one  never 
knows  whether  to  allow  for  it  or  not.  Here  is  seen  the  wis- 
dom of  keeping  well  to  the  westward.  Had  we  steered  a 
course  with  the  view  of  making  Finisterre  and  passing  close  to 
it,  steamer-wise,  we  should  be  by  this  time,  not  off  Finisterre, 
but  off  Corunna  or  Cape  Ortegal,  forty  miles  to  leeward  ! 

About  twelve  o'clock  I  was  on  the  rail,  lashed  to  a  davit, 
and  vainly  endeavoring  at  once  to  keep  my  sextant  dry  and  to 
catch  the  sun  between  the  clouds  and  the  horizon,  between  the 
big  waves  that  rose  up  and  kept  washing  it  out.  The  wind  had 
freshened  constderably,  and  was  blowing  three  parts  of  a  gale. 
The  sea  had  got  up  too,  a  school  of  porpoises  were  playing 
about  our  bows,  and  the  two  white  ducks  were  huddled  up  in  a 
corner  of  the  hen-coop.  It  was  no  easy  matter  to  stand  on  the 
wet  and  slippery  deck  as  the  litle  ship  put  her  nose  into  the 
seas.    The  sky  seemed  to  have  come  down  on  to  the  top  of  the 


FLOTSAM  AND   JETSAM.  245 

mast,  and  had  that  dull,  leaden,  greasy  look  which  usually  por- 
tends a  real  good  hustler.  With  our  topmast  housed,  trysail, 
small  foresail,  and  third  jib,  we  should  have  been  snug  enough  ; 
but,  as  the  weather  still  got  worse,  we  hove  to  at  one  o'clock, 
took  the  bonnet  off  the  foresail,  set  the  fourth  jib,  and  made 
sail  again  on  the  starboard  tack.  She  was  pretty  lively  at  it, 
everything  fetched  way  in  the  cabins,  the  crockery  began  mak- 
ing a  concert  in  the  pantry,  and,  when  one  was  below,  the  only 
thing  was  to  sit  down  to  leeward  on  the  cabin  floor,  consult  the 
chart,  and  hope  for  better  weather.  This  has  gone  on  all  day, 
but  things  have  got  no  worse,  and  now,  at  6  p.m.,  the  wind 
has  veered  to  N.W,,  and  moderated  a  bit,  which  I  attribute  to 
our  having  sailed  on  the  starboard  tack  out  of  one  of  those 
Yankee  "  disturbances." 

Saturday,  l7th  December. 

Quite  a  fine  day  again,  though  there  is  still  a  good  deal  of 
sea  running.  But  the  wind  stands  at  N.W.,  and  as  there  is  a 
sun,  I  have  at  last  got  observations  both  for  latitude  and 
longitude,  after  an  interval  of  four  days  without  either.  To- 
day, too,  we-  have  eaten  the  duck,  and  on  the  whole  things 
look  quite  prosperous. 

Sunday,  18th  December. 

Another  fine  day  with  a  nice  breeze  from  the  W.,  and  also  a 
bit  of  the  sun  amiable  enough  to  show  himself  at  noon.  At 
two  o'clock  we  made  land,  bearing  S.E.  by  S.,  opined  by 
Dick  to  be  the  Burlings,  but  evidently,  as  an  inspection  from 
the  mast-head  showed,  the  mountains  of  Cintra  over  the  Rock 
of  Lisbon.  At  dark  this  was  put  beyond  question  by  our  mak- 
ing the  Rock  of  Lisbon  light.  But  here  comes  another  aggra- 
vating element  of  uncertainty  ;  for  on  timing  the  revolutions 
of  the  light,  I  find  it  revolves  in  two  minutes  and  a  half, 
instead  of  revolving — as  according  to  the  sailing  directions  and 
the  latest  light-book  it  should — in  one  minute  and  three  quar- 
ters. Hereupon  has  ensued  that  anxious  reasoning  out  of  bear- 
ings and  courses  and  possible  insets,  by  which  one  strives  to 
arrive  at  a  conclusion — the  result  of  which  is  that  we  have  de- 


246  FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM. 

cided  that  there  must  either  have  been  a  change  made  in  the 
light  and  not  published,  or  else  that  the  machinery  has  got 
wrong  or  wants  oiling,  and  has  thus  become  irregular  in  its  in- 
tervals— which  is  not  by  any  means  a  rare  occurrence  with 
Portuguese  lights.  But,  by  taking  two  bearings  and  the  dis- 
tance run  between  them,  I  put  our  distance  from  the  light  at 
no  more  than  twenty  miles,  which  again  places  us  ten  miles 
further  to  the  eastward  than  our  reckoning  made  us.  Oh, 
these  insets  I 

Monday,  19th  December. 

A  nice  westerly  wind  and  a  smooth  sea  tempt  us  again  to  set 
our  mainsail,  which  brings  us  at  noon  within  sight  of  that  fine 
landmark,  Monchiqua  ;  and  now  at  five  o'clock  we  are  off  Cape 
St.  Vincent,  and  going  the,  for  us,  marvellous  rate  of  five 
knots.  The  air  is  warm  and  genial,  the  sea  is  like  a  mill-pond, 
and  below  one  is  hardly  aware  that  the  vessel  is  under  way,  so 
smoothly  does  she  run.  The  P.  and  0.  steamer  that  left 
Gravescnd  last  Wednesday  passed  us  off  Cape  St.  Vincent,  a 
day  later.  I  doubt  we  shall  find  she  had  a  breeze  to  the  north- 
ward of  us  last  Friday. 

Tuesday,  20th  December. 

So  far  as  the  sun  goes,  we  might  as  well  have  been  in  Eng- 
land, for  during  the  eleven  days  we  have  now  been  out  we 
have  only  had  him  properly  out  at  all  four  times,  and  during 
these  last  three  days  we  have  never  seen  him  at  all.  As,  how- 
ever, we  have  now  got  a  new  departure  from  Cape  St.  Vincent, 
we  care  but  little  about  him.  And,  though  the  sky  is  so  over- 
cast, the  weather  is  marvellously  fine,  and  warm  as  an  English 
June. 

Wednesday,  21st  December,  10.15a.m. 

We  made  Cape  Spartel  light  at  one  o'clock  this  morning  and 
Cape  Trafalgar  soon  after  ;  and,  having  duly  shown  our  ensign 
to  the  Spanish  fort  at  Tarifa  Point — the  failure  to  do  which  the 
proud  Spaniard  occasionally  rewards  with  a  round  shot — we  are 
now  running  into  Gibraltar  bay,  and  smartening  up  to  go  ashore. 


FLOTSAM   AND  JETSAM.  247 

For  the  depth  of  winter  the  voyage  has  been  a  very  fine  one, 
of  exactly  eleven  days,  and  I  don't  know  how  one  could  spend 
eleven  days  better.  I  look  forward  with  something  like  horror 
to  the  renewal  of  letters  and  newspapers,  from  which  we  have 
been  delivered  during  this  time.  It  is  such  a  rest  to  be  with- 
out those  triumphs  of  civilization. 


CHAPTER  LXVII. 

On  Board  the  Lively  Sally, 

Gibraltar,  24th  Dec.  1881. 
Whenever  I  get  abroad  I  find  it  impossible  not  to  feel  proud 
of  my  countrymen.  They  may  seem  commonplace  and  vulgar 
enough  in  England  ;  but  put  them  down  among  foreigners  in 
a  foreign  country,  and  upon  my  word  they  look  like  lords  of 
the  human  race.  Here  at  Gibraltar  one  is  especially  struck 
by  this.  The  narrow  and  tortuous  streets  are  filled  with  dirty 
little  shrimps  of  Spaniards  got  up  to  represent  Parisian  dandies, 
lemon-colored  Italians,  coarse-fibred  Germans,  swarthy  Portu- 
guese, stalwart  Maltese,  and  turbancd  and  dignified  Moors  ; 
but  among  them  all  the  fair-haired,  blue-eyed  Englishman 
walks  with  the  lordly  air  of  a  man  among  women  and  children. 
Charley  from  Aldershot,  at  whom  we  shoot  forth  gibes  when 
he  appears  in  the  Park,  looks  here  so  clean,  so  well-groomed, 
so  well-dressed,  as  he  saunters  grandly  with  his  bull-terrier  at 
his  heels,  that  one  feels  inclined  to  embrace  him  and  ask  one- 
self to  dine  at  his  mess  that  very  evening.  Even  Tommy  Atkins 
is  transfigured,  and  the  smartest  and  dandiest  little  Spaniard 
ever  got  up  to  kill,  looks  a  wretched  being  beside  Tommy, 
wrestling  in  his  shirt-sleeves  and  overalls  with  the  construction 
of  a  shanty  or  the  laying  out  of  Lord  Napier's  last  new  garden. 
The  very  seamen,  ashore  from  the  colliers,  bearded  and  sea- 
booted  as  they  are,  have  an  air  of  quiet  dignity  about  them  z» 


348  FLOTSAM  AND   JETSAM. 

compared  with  the  men  of  the  other  countries  that  are  so  liber- 
ally represented  here.  I  fancy  that,  if  a  man  came  down  to 
Gibraltar  from  the  moon,  wanting  a  score  of  men  he  could  trust 
not  to  lie  to  him  or  to  desert  him  in  an  emergency,  he  would 
stand  in  the  street  here  and  pick  out  twenty  Englishmen. 
Indeed,  the  Moors — who  may  be  almost  considered  as  inhabi- 
tants of  another  planet — do  unhesitatingly  prefer  the  English 
to  all  other  people.  Perhaps,  however,  that  may  be  because 
we  buy  their  cattle  and  eggs. 

The  people  of  Gibraltar  are,  I  am  told,  far  from  prosperous 
just  now.  They  want,  it  is  said,  two  things — rain,  and  a  rev- 
olution in  Spain.  The  want  of  rain  shows  itself  very  plainly, 
for  everj^thing  on  the  rock  is  dry  and  dusty.  The  revolution 
in  Spain,  on  the  other  hand,  is  required  for  the  sake  of  trade. 
Gibraltar,  being  a  free  port,  is  a  great  depot  for  all  the  goods 
that  are  wanted  by  the  Spaniards,  and  that  are  prevented  from 
reaching  them  by  the  heavy  and,  indeed,  prohibitory  duties 
imposed  by  the  Spanish  Government.  There  is  in  all  times  a 
certain  amount — though  now  less  than  formerly  there  was — of 
smuggling  which  tempers  in  some  degree  the  tariff  to  the 
shorn  Spaniard  ;  but  when  a  proper  good  pronunciamiento 
takes  place,  then  comes  the  great  opportunity  of  the  Rock 
scorpion.  The  carabineros  and  custom-house  oflScers,  who 
guard  the  frontier  of  Spain,  being  on  such  occasions  doubtful 
which  side  is  going  to  win,  prudently  hold  aloof,  and  give 
themselves  a  severe  holiday  till  the  question  is  settled  as  to 
which  side  is  to  be  the  Rebellion  and  which  the  Government. 
For  several  days,  therefore,  the  frontier  is  not  guarded  at  all, 
and  the  beneficent  laws  of  Free  Trade  have  full  play.  Then  is 
seen  a  great  crowd  of  carts,  wagons,  calesas,  men,  women,  and 
children,  hurrying  and  jostling  through  the  narrow  gate  of 
Gibraltar,  with  the  goods  that  the  Spaniard  buys.  In  a  short 
time  all  the  stores  that  have  accumulated  on  the  Rock  are  run 
into  Spain,  the  profits  are  great,  and  the  Gibraltar  people  rub 
their  hands  over  well-filled  pockets,  till  a  period  of  quiet  brings 
again  the  carabinero  and  the  guarda  costa  into  action.     It  is 


FLOTSAM   XJHD  JETSAM.  ;549 

not  merely  the  carpets  of  Mr.  Bright  and  the  screws  of  Mr. 
Chamberlain  that  are  thus  provided  for  the  Spaniard,  but  many 
other  products  of  our  favored  isle  ;  and  at  the  last  Spanish 
Revolution,  in  the  midst  of  the  surging,  fighting,  blaspheming 
crowd  that  was  pressing  through  the  gate,  was  seen  a  well- 
known  Presbyterian  parson  who,  with  the  wisdom  of  the  ser- 
pent, was  taking  advantage  of  the  providential  period  of  anar- 
chy to  run  his  stock  of  Bibles  into  Spain.  The  Society  for  Pro- 
moting  Contraband  Knowledge  could  hardly  improve  upon  that. 

The  remarkable  fact  about  Gibraltar  is,  that  the  most  fervent 
advocates  of  the  English  occupation  of  the  Rock  are  the  Span- 
iards themselves.  They  would  not  for  anything  see  it  pass 
again  under  the  dominion  of  their  own  Government.  And  the 
reason  is  simlpe  enough.  Gibraltar  is  the  one  point  of  secur- 
ity and  stability  in  the  Spanish  peninsula.  It  is  at  once  the 
safe  and  the  refuge  of  the  whole  south  of  Spain.  The  Span- 
iards bank  there  because  they  know  that,  once  under  the  Eng- 
lish guns,  their  cash  is  safe,  which  it  is  very  far  from  being 
wherever  there  is  a  Spanish  official.  And  when  the  periodical 
storm  of  revolution  and  throat-cutting  breaks,  they  bear  up 
and  run  for  the  Rock  as  one  man,  knowing  as  they  do  that  they 
may  there  count  upon  the  hospitality  and  protection  of  the 
English.  Half  the  notable  public  men  of  Spain  have  been  our 
guests  here  at  one  time  or  another,  and  whatever  they  may  say 
in  the  Cortes  to  please  the  people  of  the  north  of  Spain,  who 
are  too  far  from  the  Rock  to  fly  to  it  or  to  smuggle  from  it, 
they  would  be  in  truth  very  much  alarmed  if  they  foresaw  any 
serious  probability  of  the  shutting  up  of  so  precious  a  bolt-hole. 
But  they  know  that  there  neither  is  nor  can  be  any  serious 
probability  of  such  a  catastrophe  ;  and,  therefore,  they  readily 
cam  a  little  cheap  popularity  by  advocating,  in  rolling  and  so- 
norous Castilian  periods,  that  expulsion  of  the  English  and  re- 
sumption by  Spain  of  the  Rock  which  they  are  well  assured 
will  never  be  effected. 

The  same  thing  is  true  of  the  smuggling,  over  which  so  much 
virtuous  indignation  has  recently  been  expended.     It  is  not 


260  FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM. 

the  English  who  smuggle,  but  the  Spaniards  themselves  ;  and 
neither  English  nor  Spaniards  could  do  it  at  all  were  it  not 
for  the  connivance  of  the  Spanish  guards  and  custom-house 
officers.  Nobody  who  wishes  to  run  a  cargo  thinks  of  braving 
or  even  of  giving  the  slip  to  the  custom-house  guards — for  it  is 
so  very  easy  to  buy  them.  It  is  all  a  matter  of  business.  You 
pay  so  much  for  the  beach  for  so  many  hours,  and  during  that 
time  nobody  will  hear  or  see  anything  of  what  you  may  do  at 
the  place  agreed  upon.  But  there  is  more  than  this.  So  cor- 
rupt are  the  custom-house  officials  that  they  positively  will  not 
let  you  pay  the  regular  duties  of  the  tariff.  If  you  insist — as 
an  Englishman  at  a  certain  port  of  the  south  of  Spain  has  re- 
cently insisted — upon  doing  so,  they  simply  *'  Boycott"  you, 
place  every  impediment  in  your  way,  and  render  it  practically 
impossible  for  you  to  carry  on  your  trade.  But  pay  half,  or  a 
quarter,  of  the  duties,  and  give  the  officials  a  share  of  the  sum 
saved,  and  the  impediments  all  disappear  as  by  magic.  In  ad- 
dition to  this,  you  must  be  prepared  on  each  voyage  to  bring 
little  parcels  of  cheese,  butter,  and  cutlery  for  the  subordi- 
nates, and  then  you  will  find  everything  run  as  smoothly  as  pos- 
sible. These  are  facts  for  which,  if  necessary,  I  could  give 
names,  dates,  and  places  ;  and  as  long  as  such  things  are,  it  is 
more  than  ridiculous  for  anybody  to  suppose  that  the  Span- 
iards have  any  grievance  in  such  smuggling  as  still  takes  place. 
It  is  their  business — as  it  is  the  business  of  the  French  and  our 
other  neighbors — to  protect  their  own  revenue,  and  if  they 
would  either  reform  their  tariff  or  pay  their  officers  a  salary 
that  would  hold  body  and  soul  together,  there  would  be  no 
difficulty  whatever  in  doing  it.  But  to  ask,  as  some,  not 
Spaniards  but  Englishmen,  do,  that  England  should  make  reg- 
ulations for  English  territory  in  order  to  protect  Spain  from 
the  consequences  of  her  own  corruption,  is  absurd. 

If  the  possession  of  Gibraltar  by  the  English  is  recognized  as 
a  blessing  to  the  Spaniards,  it  requires  but  little  to  make  it  rec- 
ognized as  a  blessing  to  the  world  at  large.  Hitherto  there  has 
been,  and  even  now  there  is,  too  great  a  disposition  to  treat  it 


I-LOTSl-M   JLITD  JETSAM.  251 

simply  and  solely  as  a  fortress,  and  to  withhold  rather  than  to 
grant  those  facilities  which  might  make  it  what  by  its  position 
it  should  be,  one  of  the  great  trading  centres  of  the  world. 
For  instance,  it  is  a  fact,  though  to  some  it  will  seem  scarcely 
credible,  that  there  is  at  this  moment  no  such  thing  as  a  dry- 
dock  at  Gibraltar,  and,  indeed,  no  means  of  repairing  and  re- 
fitting vessels  that  come  in  crippled  by  bad  weather.  Any 
number  of  such  vessels  do  come  into  the  bay,  both  from  the 
Mediterranean  and  from  the  Atlantic,  in  the  course  of  the  year  ; 
but  there  is  no  means  of  doing  anything  for  them,  beyond, 
perhaps,  providing  a  spar,  and  for  any  serious  repairs  they 
must  go,  either  to  Malta  or  to  Cadiz.  Yet  there  is,  in  the 
Camber  by  the  New  Mole,  an  excellent  site  for  a  graving  dock, 
and  if  it  were  made  it  would  be  a  priceless  boon,  not  merely  to 
the  trading  vessels  of  all  nations,  but  also  to  our  own  men-of- 
war,  and  it  would  be  an  addition  of  great  weight  to  the  reasons 
why  the  retention  of  Gibraltar  by  the  English- is  a  benefit  to  all 
mankind.  Again,  the  New  Mole  is  not  yet  finished,  and,  what 
is  worse,  is  that  the  works  by  which  it  was  to  be  completed  are 
entirely  suspended,  and  present  a  dismal  array  of  deserted  der- 
ricks and  loose  stones.  Meantime  an  enormous  expense  is 
being  incurred  in  getting  out  two  hundred-ton  guns  from  Eng- 
land, and  a  further  expense  of  several  thousands  of  pounds  will 
have  to  be  incurred  in  getting  them  into  position.  This  may 
be  necessary — I  don't  say  it  is  not — but  the  Graving  Dock 
and  the  completion  of  the  New  Mole  are  at  least  equally  neces- 
sary, and,  as  a  matter  of  policy,  are  even  more  pressing. 


CHAPTER  LXVm. 

Tangier,  Morocco,  28th  December,  1881. 
Our  fussy,  fevered,  worrying  Western  civilization  is  doubt- 
less a  necessary  blessing  ;  and  that  incapacity  for  enjoying,  or 
even  possessing,  anything  which  results  from  our  always  being 


352  FLOTSAM   AND  JETSAM. 

in  j&  hurry  to  get  at  something  else,  is,  I  suppose,  one  of  itr, 
greatest  advantages.  Yet  when  one  gets  a  breath  of  the  rag- 
ged, poor,  patient,  unprogressing  East,  one  cannot  but  feel 
that  there  is  a  charm  and  a  repose  about  it  which  railways, 
telegraphs,  cheap  newspapers,  and  Party  government  can  never 
afford.  Look  at  this  little  Tangier.  It  is  a  mere  collection  of 
low  white  houses  lying  on  the  Barbary  coast  in  the  Straits  of 
Gibraltar,  and  not  above  thirty  miles  distant  from  the  Rock. 
You  may  come  here  from  thence  in  something  under  four  hours 
by  the  Hercules  tug  ;  and  when  you  land  you  find  that  you 
have  left  Wapping  and  Woolwich  for  a  new  world.  The  Sul- 
tan of  Morocco  is  not  precisely  what  would  be  called  a  highly 
civilized  or  progressive  Sovereign,  and  though  the  soil  is  rich 
and  fertile  his  people  are  very  poor.  But  on  every  hand  there 
is  an  air  of  dignity,  of  calm,  and  even  of  content,  such  as  you 
would  look  for  in  vain  among  the  cities  of  the  West.  The 
streets  arc  steep,  dirty,  ill-paved  with  the  most  knobbly  stones, 
and  go  crookedly  round  endless  corners  ;  the  shops  are  holes 
in  the  wall  of  the  size  of  dog-kennels — but  the  men  are  mar- 
vels of  quiet  dignity  and  grace.  Most  of  them  are  ragged,  all 
of  them  are  poor,  but  in  spite  of  all  there  is  something  grand 
about  all  of  them.  It  is,  I  suppose,  partly  due  to  the  turban 
and  the  flowing  white  or  brown  jeelah  in  which  they  drape 
themselves  with  so  much  dignity  ;  but  it  must  be  much  more 
due  to  their  views  of  life,  to  their  sobriety  and  simplicity,  and 
to  the  fact  that,  like  all  Mussulmans,  they  believe  in  their  relig- 
ion. It  is  noteworthy  that  they  are  almost  all — except,  of 
course,  the  black-fezzed  Jews — clean  in  their  persons,  however 
ragged  in  their  dress.  In  Europe  we  wear  clean  coats  over 
dirty  bodies  ;  in  the  East  they  possess  clean  bodies  under  dirty 
coats.  Many  of  them  are  extremely  handsome,  with  their  fine 
eyes  and  blue,  shavon  heads  ;  and  it  is  a  fact  that  among  these 
people  a  European  clad  in  the  hat  and  breeches  of  the  West 
looks  a  shameful  and  vulgar  object. 

Three  days  ago  there  was  held  here  the  Moorish  market  or 
fair,  which  made  the  hillside  outside  the  town  a  most  animated 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM.  263 

spectacle.  Scores  of  camels  from  the  interior,  laden  with  dates, 
grain,  leather,  and  country  produce,  stood  or  knelt  about  the 
ground.  Near  the  gate  squatted  a  number  of  white-clad- 
women,  each  holding  her  hdik  or  robe  with  one  hand  over  her 
mouth  to  complete  the  covering  of  the  head,  and  bargaining 
with  some  other  for  the  half  a  dozen  eggs  and  the  fowl  that 
constituted  her  whole  stock  in  trade,  and  that  she  had  brought 
perhaps  ten  or  fifteen  miles  to  sell.  Further  on,  the  banging 
of  drums  and  the  shrill  sounds  of  the  reed-pipe  announced  a 
band  of  A'issouas,  round  whom  was  formed  an  admiring  circle. 
In  the  centre  a  half-naked  snake-charmer  danced  and  shouted 
wildly,  invoking  with  an  unceasing  iteration  his  patron  saint. 
After  a  time,  stooping  down  to  what  looked  like  a  bundle  of 
rags,  he  made  passes  over  it  with  some  dirty  charms  that  hung 
round  his  neck,  and  putting  in  his  hand,  drew  forth  by  the  tail 
a  snake  at  least  a  couple  of  yards  long.  After  apostrophizing 
and  exciting  the  reptile,  which  showed  a  disagreeable  desire  to 
wriggle  toward  my  side  of  the  circle,  he  put  forth  his  tongue 
and  allowed  the  snake  to  bite  it,  a  feat  which  both  man  and 
snake  seemed  equally  to  enjoy.  Then  he  cut  himself  with  a 
knife,  after  which  he  began  his  dancing  again,  and  as  I  passed 
at  dusk  I  found  him  still  at  it,  with  apparently  unabated  energy, 
A  desire  to  see  something  of  the  judicial  system  of  Morocco 
made  me  pay  a  visit,  first  to  a  gentleman  who  sat  in  a  hole  in 
the  wall,  and  who  I  was  informed  was  the  Jewish  judge,  or,  as 
I  understand,  a  kind  of  police  magistrate.  The  judge  was  at 
that  moment  engaged  in  disposing  of  some  case  ;  but  when  he 
saw  me,  he  summarily  convicted  the  defendant,  and  addressed 
himself  to  saluting  my  unworthy  self.  I  was  much  flattered  at 
such  a  mark  of  attention,  and  was  wondering  why  it  was  never 
paid  to  me  in  my  own  country,  when  the  judge  produced  a 
silver  charm  in  the  shape  of  a  hand  and  tried  to  sell  it  to  me  at 
five  times  its  value.  On  this  I  fled  to  the  Moorish  tribunal  at 
the  gate  of  the  town.  This  was  held  in  a  small  room  some  ten 
feet  square,  on  the  floor  of  which  sat  the  Deputy-Governor  of 
the  town — a  grave  and  dignified  man  in  the  conical  red  fez  of 


^54  PLOTSjIM   A.ND   JETSAM. 

the  country.  By  the  side  of  the  room  squatted  two  of  his 
friends,  and  just  inside  the  doorway,  which  was  open,  and 
around  which  clustered  the  "  public,"  were  two  suitors.  The 
suitors  were  both  talking  together,  in  an  excited  manner  and 
with  much  gesticulation  ;  occasionally  one  of  the  public  vol- 
unteered a  remark  ;  then  the  friends  began  to  take  an  interest 
in  the  matter,  and  also  began  to  speak  ;  and  finally  the  grave 
judge,  having  vainly  motioned  first  to  one  and  then  to  the 
other  to  keep  silent,  gave  his  decision  in  the  midst  of  a  general 
row.  At  a  later  hour,  as  I  passed  this  way  again  and  looked 
through  the  open  door,  I  found  the  court  asleep  on  the  bench, 
while  suitors  and  soldiers  outside  were  patiently  awaiting  the 
end  of  his  siesta.  The  prison  is  hard  by,  and  contains  some 
three  hundred  miserable  objects  clanking  about  in  fetters,  a 
large  proportion  of  whom  neither  know,  nor  ever  will  know, 
why  they  have  been  shut  up. 

Among  other  things  that  the  helpless  stranger  must  allow 
himself  to  be  shown  here  is  one  of  the  Moorish  cafes.  They 
represent  the  whole  of  the  dissipation  and  public  amusements 
of  the  place,  which  are  of  a  very  simple-minded  character. 
The  cafe  is  a  room  with  a  dado  and  flooring  of  matting.  From 
the  low  roof  hang  a  score  of  cages  of  singing  birds  ;  in  one 
corner  stands  the  coffee-maker  with  his  charcoal  fire  and  his 
little  pots  ;  and  round  the  walls,  on  the  floor,  are  seated  the 
customers.  Some  are  smoking  the  heef  or  chopped  hemp, 
which  is  in  favor  here  ;  others  are  drinking  coffee  or  green  tea  ; 
and  soon  some  of  them  produce  tambourines  and  various 
stringed  instruments,  which  might  be  either  mandolines,  gui- 
tars, or  banjos,  and  begin  an  amateur  concert  to  an  accom- 
paniment of  hand-clapping.  Therewith  soon  arises  singing, 
usually  of  the  amatory  kind  ;  and  I  am  bound  to  say  that  the 
tunes  seemed  to  me  extremely  pretty,  most  of  them  reminding 
one  somewhat  of  Italian  cliurch  music.  The  rank  and  fashion 
of  Tangier  go  on  for  hours  in  this  manner,  always  grave,  always 
sober,  and  apparently  always  satisfied. 

One  other  entertainment  I  have  had  of  a  private  character. 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM.  256 

This  was  a  dance  of  Moorish  women,  organized  for  my  especial 
benefit,  and  as  to  which  so  much  secrecy  was  enjoined,  that  I 
felt  it  necessary  to  ask  whether  the  dance  was  one  which  a 
young  lady  might  allow  her  mamma  to  see.  Being  reassured 
as  to  this,  I  accompanied  my  native  friend  to  a  Moorish  house 
in  the  evening.  Here,  in  a  small  upper  room,  we  found  five 
musicians  squatted  on  the  floor,  and  with  them  three  women  in 
rich  Moorish  dresses  with  uncovered  faces.  Two  of  the  women 
were  very  handsome  ;  and  of  these  two,  one,  who  I  was  told 
was  but  fourteen,  had,  I  think,  the  most  beautiful  dark-brown 
gazelle-like  eyes,  the  most  magnificent  black  hair,  the  best  com- 
plexion, with  a  mantling  red  in  the  cheek,  and  the  prettiest 
and  most  expressive  features  I  have  ever  seen  in  a  brunette. 
This  girl  was  dressed  in  a  long  loose  garment,  with  a  sash  roimd 
her  hips,  and  a  silk  handkerchief  tied  round  her  head,  and 
when  she  stood  up  to  dance  I  saw  that  her  feet,  which  peeped 
out  from  under  the  long  dress,  were  naked.  She  seemed  to 
have  none  of  the  gravity  of  the  East ;  on  the  contrary,  when 
she  had  recovered  the  fright  which  the  presence  of  a  Nazarene 
seemed  at  first  to  cause  in  her,  she  was  fall  of  laughter  and  as 
playful  as  a  kitten.  She  mocked  the  grave  musicians,  imitat- 
ing their  gestures  and  caricaturing  their  notes  ;  she  caught  up 
and  repeated  the  words  of  their  singing,  and  generally  de- 
meaned herself  like  what  she  seemed  to  be — a  beautiful  spoiled 
child.  Then  she  arose  to  dance,  and  I  thought  I  had  never 
seen  anything  so  lithe  and  so  graceful.  The  dance  was  of  the 
simplest  kind.  It  consisted  mainly  in  movements  of  the  hips, 
accompanied  by  small  steps  in  the  few  square  feet  of  vacant 
space,  while  in  her  hands  she  took  the  two  ends  of  a  silk  hand- 
kerchief which  she  now  twisted  roimd  and  round  and  held 
before  her  face,  and  now  suffered  to  fall  lower.  There  was 
nothing  in  it  all,  but  the  grace  and  the  charm  of  it  were  mar- 
vellous. After  a  time  she  sank  down  exhausted  close  to  me, 
and  taking  my  hand  placed  it  on  her  heart,  which  I  felt  was 
beating  quickly.  Then  she  laughed  at  what  appeared  to  be  a 
rebuke  addressed  to  her  by  one  of  the  other  women,  and  re- 


256  FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM. 

lapsed  into  her  little  tricks.  After  this  much  tea  was  drunk  by 
everybody,  and  the  other  women  danced  in  like  manner. 
There  seemed  no  reason  why  it  should  ever  end,  and  when  I 
retired  the  ball  was  still  going  on. 

Eastern  as  Tangier  is,  something  is  being  done  to  civilize  it. 
There  are  here  nothing  less  than  four  thirty-ton  Armstrong 
guns,  and  there  is  a  Mr.  M'Hugh,  formerly  in  the  English  army, 
but  now  a  Morocco  Colonel,  who  has  already  mounted  two  of 
these  guns,  and  is  now  hard  at  work  getting  the  other  two  into 
position.  There  arc  troops,  too,  who^  are  drilled  every  day — 
with  English  words  of  command,  by  the  way — and  there  is 
generally  an  aspect  of  much  determination  not  to  submit  with- 
out a  struggle  to  any  enterprise  of  the  hated  Spaniard,  who  is 
generally  suspected  of  taking  a  much  livelier  interest  in  the 
place  than  he  has  any  business  to  do.  The  English,  on  the 
other  hand,  are  looked  upon  by  the  Moors  as  their  natural  pro- 
tectors. For  an  Englishman  they  will  do  anything,  and  Sir 
John  Hay,  our  Minister  here,  is  quite  the  king  of  the  place  ; 
which,  indeed,  he  well  deserves  to  be,  for,  in  the  midst  of 
temptations  to  which  most  of  the  other  foreign  representatives 
succumb,  he  has  always  kept  the  English  name  pure  and  unsul- 
lied, and  has  sought  only  to  be  a  friend  to  the  much- worried 
and  much-plundered  Sultan  of  Morocco. 

One  word  only  remains  to  be  said  about  Tangier.  It  is  that 
there  is  here  one  of  the  best  hotels  anywhere  to  be  found,  and 
far  superior  to  anything  I  know  either  at  Gibraltar  or  even  in 
London.  It  is  very  clean,  the  cuisine  is  quite  excellent,  and 
the  charges  are  very  moderate — ten  shillings  a  day  for  board 
and  lodging  and  everything  except  wine.  This  hotel  is  kept 
by  M.  Bruzeaud,  a  Frenchman,  who  was  formerly  messman  to 
an  English  regiment. 


FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM.  257 


CHAPTER  LXIX. 

On  Board  the  Lively  Sally_, 
At  Sea,  off  Malaga,  New  Year's  Day,  1882. 
Having  rejoiced  over  two  yachts  which  have  come  into 
Gibraltar  crippled  (one  of  them  twenty  days  from  Cowes  with 
her  bulwarks  washed  away),  while  we  have  not  carried  away  a 
rope-yarn  ;  having  dined  with  Charley  from  Aldershot,  filled 
up  with  water,  and  laid  in  a  sack  of  new  potatoes  and  some 
fresh  meat,  we  got  under  way  yesterday,  bound  for  Algiers, 
We  started  with  a  little  air  from  the  westward  ;  but  it  is  need- 
less to  say  that  we  were  hardly  clear  of  Europe  Point  before  it 
first  fell  calm  and  then  "began  to  blow  from  E.N.E.,  which  is  as 
nearly  dead  on  end  as  a  Mediterranean  wind  can  manage.  We 
have,  therefore,  done  but  little  good,  and  this  evening  as  I 
write,  there  is  a  big  ring  round  the  moon,  the  wind  is  singing 
a  lively  little  tune  among  the  rigging,  and  the  little  vessel  is 
beginning  to  jump  in  a  way  which  makes  us  foresee  that  we 
shall  come  badly  off  for  dinner. 

At  Sea,  off  Cape  Sacratif,  2d  January. 
Just  as  I  thought.  A  strong  wind  and  a  nasty  sea  have 
forced  us  to  take  in  all  the  flying  kites  with  which  we  started, 
and  having  taken  down  two  reefs  in  the  mainsail,  we  have  been 
thrashing  to  windward  along  the  Spanish  coast  all  day,  without 
making  anything  to  the  good  worth  talking  about.  And  now 
things  look  worse  instead  of  better,  and  we  have  stripped  once 
more  to  the  storm-trysail,  and  are  trying  to  persuade  ourselves 
that  we  are  altering  the  bearing  of  the  light. 

Off  Cape  Sacratif,  3d  January. 
We  have  had  a  shocking  bad  night.     The  wind  increased  to 
three  parts  of  a  gale,  and  we  had  at  last  to  heave  her  to.     The 
breeze  now  begins,  however,  to  show  signs  of  abating,   and 
both  wind  and  sea  seem  to  be  rapidly  going  down. 


258  TLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM. 

Off  Cape  de  Gat  a,  4th  January. 
Yesterday  afternoon  we  had  four  hours  quite  calm  as  regards 
the  wind,  though  there  was  a  pretty  good  swell  still  running. 
Then  a  breeze  sprang  up  from  the  S.W.,  and  we  set  our  stud- 
ding-sail and  ran  past  Capo  Sabinal  nicely.  But  at  four  o'clock 
this  morning  we  got  a  heavy  thunderstorm  with  torrents  of  rain 
(what  a  ridiculous  sea  this  is  !),  then  we  had  a  succession  of 
squalls  with  the  wind  '*  fannying"  about  anyhow — and  now  at 
four  o'clock  we  have  got  it  hard  again  from  the  old  quarter,  N.E., 
freshening  too  rapidly,  and  looking  like  mischief  with  a  heavy 
sea. 

At  Sea,  between  Europe  and  Africa,  5th  January. 

We  were  thumped  about  pretty  handsomely  all  night,  and 
my  bones  begin  to  feel  quite  sore.  I  wish  I  could  find  out 
some  way  to  keep  the  clothes  on  me  in  the  night  ;  to  prevent 
myself  from  taking  headers  into  the  bulkhead  ;  and  to  bring 
myself  up  on  one  side  or  the  other  of  my  berth  as  it  rolls  me 
over  incessantly  from  port  to  starboard  and  from  starboard  to 
port.  When  this  kind  of  thing  goes  on,  you  get  rolled  out  of 
the  soundest  sleep  before  long,  and  then  the  only  thing  is 
either  to  go  on  deck  and  "  see  how  it  looks" — which  is  some- 
how a  satisfaction,  however  bad  it  does  look — or  else  to  lie  and 
listen  to  the  howling  of  the  wind,  the  creaking  of  the  ship's 
timbers,  and  the  wash  of  the  water  outside,  varied  occasionally 
by  that  heavy  thud  and  rush  which  tell  you  that  she  has  taken 
a  little  green  water  on  board  and  is  getting  rid  of  it  through 
the  scuppers. 

Squalls  all  day — the  only  diversion  to  the  wind,  which  still 
sticks  right  ahead.  It  is  a  horrid  wind,  a  Black  Levanter,  full 
of  strength  and  bad  weather.  They  tell  me  it  is  what  is  called 
in  these  parts  the  "  Majorca  Carpenter,"  a  name  it  well  de- 
serves, from  the  number  and  importance  of  the  jobs  it  brings 
to  the  trade.  This  evening,  however,  we  have  managed  to 
get  hold  of  Cape  Ivi  light  on  the  African  side — but  it  is  very 
slow  and  very  hard  work,  and  it  strikes  me  that  we  are  having 
rather  a  dusting  over  this  passage. 


TLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM.  259 

Off  Cape  Tenez,  Africa,  Friday,  6tli  January. 

Wo  are  still  jamming  along  under  our  trysail,  and  this  morn- 
ing just  before  sunrise  we  managed  to  make  Cape  Tencz  light. 
The  wind  is  still  very  hard,  the  sea  heavy,  and  the  weather 
most  gloomy  and  depressing.  I  have  now  been  well-nigh  a 
month  at  sea,  and  /  have  never  seen  the  sun  since  I  left  Eng- 
land. This  is  a  fact  which  I  note  for  the  benefit  of  those  who 
leave  their  native  shores  in  the  belief  that  by  going  a  thousand 
miles  nearer  to  the  equator  they  will  be  sure  of  sunshine  and 
warmth.  I  have  forgotten  what  sunshine  is  like.  Cowes  is  the 
last  place  at  which  I  saw  such  a  phenomenon,  and  the  eccentric 
luminary  has  been  playing  hide-and-seek  with  me  ever  since, 
as  though  he  were  determined  I  should  never  get  an  altitude 
on  or  off  the  meridian  again.  The  whole  sky  is  covered  to- 
day, as  usual,  with  gray  clouds,  and  every  now  and  then  there 
comes  a  squall  which  knocks  up  a  sea,  pours  down  torrents  of 
rain,  and  makes  the  wind  fly  about  till  you  don't  know  what- 
course  to  steer  next. 

Then  as  to  warmth.  Afric's  burning  shore  is  a  mere  mis- 
sionary's delusion.  It  is  wretchedly  cold  and  chilly,  and  but 
for  the  persuasion  that  I  am  looking  at  Algeria  I  should  say 
that  I  was  off  Orford  Ness  in  a  November  breeze.  It  is  true 
the  thermometer  is  at  60° — but  there  is  a  rawness  and  damp- 
ness about  the  air  very  real  and  sensible — which,  indeed,  must 
be  so,  for  under  it  Dick  has  disclosed  a  revival  of  spirits  which 
nothing  could  produce  but  a  palpable  reminder  of  Suffolk. 

As  a  sea  the  Mediterranean  is  a  mere  swindle.  It  is,  in- 
deed, not  a  sea  at  all,  but  a  miserable  puddle  with  nothing  of 
the  salt  and  savor  that  make  the  breath  of  our  northern  seas  so 
invigorating.  Withal,  in  its  angry  moods  it  is  vicious  and 
nasty,  yet  always  mean  and  pretty — a  very  woman  among 
waters.  The  sea  never  seems  to  run  whole  and  handsome  as  it 
does  outside,  with  great  swinging  billows  ;  it  is  cross,  and 
short,  and  jumpy,  and  very  vicious.  I  think  quite  the  worst 
and  most  dangerous  sea  I  ever  saw  was  one  I  met  with  off 
Cires  Point,  when  coming  from  Tangier  to  Gibraltar  in  the 


260  FLOTSAM   AND   JETSAM. 

teeth  of  a  whole  gale  from  the  eastward.  It  was  so  steep,  so 
deep,  so  hollow,  and  so  cliff-like,  that  it  seemed  impossible 
any  vessel  could  rise  to  it  ;  and  the  ship  T  was  in — a  fine 
steamer  of  700  tons — took  it  in  green  over  the  bows.  To-day 
we  have  been  turning  to  windward  against  a  strong  north- 
caster,  but  the  sea  there  is  with  it  is  out  of  all  proportion  to 
the  wind,  and,  as  the  good  little  ship  pkmges  down  the  steep 
and  dives  into  it,  she  has  hardly  time  to  shake  her  bowsprit 
clear  of  one  wave  before  the  next  is  upon  her.  Yet  she  is  not 
being  forced  ;  for  we  are  under  a  storm  trysail,  a  more  spitfire 
fourth  jib,  and  a  trifle  of  foresail  with  the  bonnet  off. 

Algiers,  Saturday,  Yth  January. 

At  last.     We  made  Cape  Caxine  light  at  midnight,  and  this 

morning  early  we  got  abreast  of  our  port,  in  which  we  are  now 

happily  moored,  after  thrashing  about  with  head  winds  and 

seas,  and  taking  seven  days  to  do  our  four  hundred  odd  miles. 


CHAPTER  LXX. 

On  Board  the  Lively  Sally, 

Algiers,   10th  January,  1882. 

"  Know  ye  not  that  my  people  are  a  nation  of  brigands,  and 
that  I  am  their  chief  ?" 

Such  was  the  explanation  and  defence  of  his  own  position, 
addressed  by  the  late  Dey  of  Algiers  to  the  English  Consul  who 
remonstrated  with  him  against  the  practices  of  the  Algerine 
rovers — practices  which  consisted  in  a  free  appropriation  of 
other  people's  property,  and  a  still  freer  delivery  of  other  peo- 
ple's persons  into  slavery.  The  same  answer  may  be,  and 
practically  is,  made  by  Monsieur  Gambetta  and  his  fellows  in 
reply  to  any  observations  addressed  to  them  with  regard  either 
to  Tunis  or  to  Algiers,     This  answer  is,  it  is  true,  often  ac- 


I-LOTSAM   AKD   JETSAM.  361 

companied  by  assertions  that  the  progress  of  civilization  has 
been  much  helped,  and  the  material  condition  of  Algiers  much 
improved,  by  the  French  occupation.  But  it  is  hard,  indeed, 
to  see  any  great  signs  of  this.  Dirt  and  oppression  seem  to 
reign  supreme  throughout  the  city.  You  walk  ankle- deep  iu 
mud,  and  from  the  most  poverty-stricken  Arab  in  rags  to  the 
most  consequential  oflBcial  in  gold  lace,  all  the  inhabitants  ap- 
pear to  be  struck  with  an  abiding  grief.  One  reason  of  this  is, 
as  I  am  informed,  that  the  English  have,  with  one  accord, 
abstained  this  year  from  coming  to  Algiers.  They  are  under 
the  entirely  erroneous  impression  that  the  insurrection  which  is 
smouldering  in  the  remote  provinces  of  the  colony  might  af- 
fect their  precious  persons  ;  and  they  are,  perhaps,  somewhat 
moved  also  by  the  knowledge  which  former  writers  have  im- 
pressed upon  them,  that  Algiers  boasts  quite  the  worst  hotels 
in  Europe,  combined  with  some  of  the  highest  charges  and 
worst  cooking  to  be  found  in  any  quarter  of  the  globe.  At 
any  rate  the  English  have  not  come  ;  and  as  the  French  colo- 
nist, who  has  been  banished  for  State  purposes  from  his  beloved 
Paris,  casts  his  eyes  and  his  thoughts  eastward  toward  Tunis, 
or  southward  and  westward  toward  the  insurgent  tribe  on  the 
borders  of  Morocco,  he  curses  the  day  when  he  quitted  the 
boulevard,  and  indulges  in  prophecies  of  the  speedy  downfall 
of  Monsieur  Gambetta's  Government. 

What  strikes  one  in  the  first  aspect  of  Algiers,  is  that  it  is 
one  large  attempt  to  reproduce  the  Rue  de  Rivoli.  The  same 
arcades,  the  same  heavily-built  houses,  the  same  shops,  and 
the  same  cafes,  full  of  the  same  people,  are  found  here  ;  and 
if  the  scene  is  somewhat  diversified  by  ragged,  cofEee-colored, 
bare-footed  Arabs,  this  seems  rather  an  accidental  and  tempo- 
rary feature  than  an  abiding  characteristic  of  the  place.  All 
day  long  the  troops  fire  guns  and  play  upon  drums  and  trum- 
pets in  distressing  efforts  to  remind  the  natives  that  they  are 
there  as  masters.  The  natives,  indeed,  are  not  at  all  inclined 
to  dispute  the  fact,  though  they  certainly  lament  it.  Up  one 
of  the  by-streets  in  the  Arab  quarter  lives  a  friend  of  mine — 


262  FLOTSAM  AKD  JETSAM. 

an  Arab  barber — and,  finding  I  was  English,  he  has  imparted 
to  me  his  sorrows.  He  was  here  as  a  lad  in  the  good  old  times 
of  the  Dey,  when  everybody  was  rich  and  well-to-do,  and  when 
you  could  buy  two  fowls  for  a  shilling.  Now,  he  says,  all  is 
changed,  and  as  he  shaves  his  compatriots,  turning  the  patient's 
head  from  side  to  side  as  he  clears  off  every  vestige  of  hair, 
not  merely  from  the  crown  of  the  head,  but  all  over  the  face, 
with  the  sole  exception  of  the  eye-brows  and  the  mustachio, 
he  details  his  griefs.  "  Oil  is  dear,  bread  is  dear  ;  everybody 
is  poor — even  the  French  are  poor  ;  the  only  people  who  are 
rich  are  the  Jews.  Even  the  razors  are  not  what  they  were  when 
I  was  young.  They  used  to  cut  beautifully — now  they  won't 
cut  at  all.    But  God  is  great,  and,  perhaps,  things  will  mend." 

As  far  as  climate  is  concerned,  there  ought  not  to  be  much 
to  mind  in  this  country.  But  withal  the  melancholy  fact  re- 
mains, that  for  those  who  are  not  too  consumptive  to  think 
of  anything  else  but  their  health,  Algiers  is  a  dreary  place. 
Beyond  the  caf6s,  where  the  Frenchmen  spend  every  day  a 
happy  two  or  three  hours  in  drinking  three  halfpennyworth  of 
absinthe,  there  are  no  amusements  whatever.  The  only  enter- 
tainments I  have  been  able  to  devise  for  myself  are  two.  One 
is  having  my  hair  cut,  and  the  other  is  going  to  the  native 
Turkish  bath,  where  I  have  found  sbampooers  so  skilful  and 
scientific  as  made  me  blush 'for  those  brother  professionals  of 
theirs  in  England,  who  rub  one  over  as  though  they  were 
polishing  plate.  I  have  tried  a  third  amusement — that  of 
going  ashore  and  walking  about  the  streets  in  the  endeavor  to 
buy  something — but  T  do  declare  that  there  Is  nothing  here  to 
be  bought  that  Js  worth  taking  away,  unless  it  be  at  prices  too 
fabulous  for  belief.  I  find  indications  that  in  former  times  the 
country  produced  fine  stuffs  and  rich  embroideries,  but  at  the 
present  time  they  manufacture  nothing  but  the  most  barbaric 
trumpery. 

It  is  not  particularly  warm  and  not  at  all  sunny  ;  and  on  the 
whole,  if  any  of  my  compatriots  wish  to  see  what  Algiers  is 
like,  I  should  advise  them  to  go  to  Paris,  and  stay  there. 


INDEX 


Accidents,  177. 

AcctrsTOMKD,  becoming,  to  a  thing,  178. 

Adaptation,  202. 

Admiration,  how  to  express  oar,  182. 

Algieks,  late  Dey  of,  2B0;  aspect  and 
climate  of,  262. 

America N  people,  50. 

Anchobage,  its  importance,  235. 

Antiqcities,  how  to  get  them,  55. 

Appeakanoes,  real  and  false,  30. 

ArasTocRACY,  what  tliey  contrived  to  in- 
vent, 36  ;  how  composed,  53. 

Art,  different  styles  and  periods  of,  125  ; 
the  object  of,  157. 

Artichoke,  how  to  cook  it,  199. 

Asparagus,  how  to  cook,  16. 

Assertions,  precise  and  certain,  191. 

Attire,  vulgarity  of,  on  a  holiday,  196. 


Children,  the  love  of,  225. 
CiviLiz.ATiON,  a  state  of,  158. 
CoppiN,  a  lovely,  &3. 
Commodore  and  the  Queen,  which  great- 
est, 62.  -«.         I  b 

Communion,  its  pleasures  and  difflcul- 

tit-s,  69. 
Companionship  in  vice  or  corruption, 

CoMTB's  philosophy,  185. 
Consideration  for  others,  51. 
Constancy,  its  value,  17-3. 
Conventionalities,  168. 
Conversation,  a  habif  in,  136. 
Counterbalances,  2"^. 
Co  WES,  a  ball  and  tea  at,  108  ;  in  winter, 

2-39  ;  in  a  winter  gale  off,  241. 
Crossing  the  liue,  reflections  on,  97. 
Cucumber,  how  to  deal  with  it,  210. 


Bacon,  quoted,  161. 

Bacon's  Organon.  159. 

Bargain,  breaking  the,  31. 

Beggar,  passing  by  a,  153. 

Belief,  demonstration  of  a,  206. 

Beliefs  originate  in  their  apparent 
proat,  7.5. 

Benvbnuto,  anecdote  of,  204. 

Bible,  the.  a  grand  record,  54. 

Bill,  a  revolutionary  character,  68. 

Billy  Baby  run  ashore,  15. 

Biscay,  in  the  bay  of.  244. 

"Blackepkiers,"  parliament  at,  154. 

Body,  this  vile,  127  ;  a  sound,  its  im- 
portance, 196. 

Brown,  John,  hero  of  Harper's  Ferry, 
35. 

Bruges,  cathedral  and  paintings,  208. 

Business,  a  rage  for  a  big,  117:  and 
time,  200. 


Candlesticks,  Queen  Anne's  silver,  25. 
Carlyle  and  hero  worship,  50. 
Cat,  reflertions  on  a  favorite,  120. 
Causes,  little,  produce  great  effects,  52. 
Channel  islands,  76. 
Charley,  the  watch  on  board,  39. 
Chart,  a,  the  importance  of,  76  ;  Eng- 
lish and  French,  88. 


D. 

Daybreak,  appreciation  of  the,  47 

Death,  the  fear  of,  32. 

Deception  of  ourselves  and  others,  191. 

Descartes,  quoted,  203. 

Diamond,  actress  wishing  to  sell  her  60 

Diderot,  quoted,  121. 

Din  AN,  tne  monasteries  and  laborers  at. 

79. 
Dinner,  description  of  a,  102 ;  with  an 

escaped  convict,  109;  at  a  late  hour,  198. 
Disappointment,  205. 
Dogs,  love  for,  152. 
Duke  op  Norfolk  and  his  cathedral, 

51. 

E. 

Eden,  two  trees  m  the  garden  of,  65. 

Editor,  murderous,  178. 

Education.  180  ;  of  upper  and  lower 
classes,  48. 

England,  its  inhabitants,  36  ;  materially 
and  morally,  37;  cemmon  people  of, 
82 :  not  a  free  country,  146. 

English  and  Americans  contrasted,  51. 

Englishman,  the  distinguished  charac- 
teristic of,  125. 

English.men.  a  belief  of,  dying  out,  28  ; 
their  condition  and  attitude,  37  ;  judg- 
ing foreign  countries,  164.  " 

Erasmus,  quoted,  100. 


264 


INDBX. 


Excellence,  how  to  attain  relative,  184. 
Excuse,  the  eelflsh  and  cowardly,  b6. 
Experience,  learning  from,  16U. 


Faihtres,  will  make  you  respect,  10. 
FAI.1IO0T11,  the  weather  at,  85. 
Fkoant,  in  harbor  at,  56;    description 

of,  58. 
Feelings,  difficulty  of  espressing  our 

own.  198. 
FiuDLE.  the  force  of  a.  33, 
Fish,  how  to  keep,  SaO. 
Fishermen,  the  Society  of  North  Sea,  6  ; 

English  and  French  contrasted,  59. 
FisHiNo,  succfssiful,  208. 
Foo,  the  mystery  of,  23. 
Force  of  wind,  wave,  eonl,  40. 
Forgiveness.  167. 

Formula  for  household  cavalry,  148. 
FoRTbNE,  good  and  evil,  (53. 
French,  efiects  of  war  on  the,  13. 
Friends,  estimating  them  aright,  181. 
Fruits,  a  test,  55. 

G. 

Galileo's  prophecy.  186. 

Gahblino  by  widows  and  orphans,  163. 

Garlic,  the  irue  use  of,  9. 

Genius,  a  dir^ease  of  brain  tissue,  94 ; 
varieties  of,  95. 

Gibraltar,  filtering  bay  at,  246 ;  de- 
scription of,  247  ;  possession  of,  by  the 
English,  250. 

GiRULER  Sands,  46. 

Glass,  means  of  toughening,  165. 

God,  admiration  of  the  works  of,  202. 

Great,  the  misfoituue  of  the  truly,  156. 

Greknwicu  hoti'l.  people  at,  26;  little 
boys  diving  at,  27  ;  sailors'  palace  home 
at,  29 ;  run  into  at,  29  ;  regatta  at,  44  ; 
hospital,  description  and  capacity  of, 
44. 

H. 

Hatred,  difficulty  of,  207. 

Havre,  impossible  to  get  freight  at,  13  ; 
heading  for,  115;  waiting  for  good 
weather  at,  122  ;  port  and  sanitary  dues 
at,  i.i:i. 

Help,  sitnations  in  which  no  human  be- 
ing can.  9. 

Henry  IV.  of  Prance,  one  of  the  ten 
wishes  of,  152. 

Heroes  in  these  times,  50. 

Holidays,  multiplication  of,  41 ;  a  few, 
a  delusion,  70. 

Holloway's  pills,  221. 

Honesty,  real  difBcult,  67  ;  its  rareness, 
107. 

Hotel  Royal,  welcome  at,  13. 

Hotspur  quoted,  155. 

House  op  Com.mons,  how  seats  are  ob- 
tained, 66. 

House,  getting  into  a  new,  1.38. 

Hunger,  Imperiousness  of,  59. 

Huxley,  statement  about  society,  65. 


I,  the  centre  of  the  universe,  14 

Idea,  no,  ever  dies,  16 ;  the  power  of  .an, 

34. 
Ideas,  French.  195. 
Idlers,  parwdise  of,  101. 
Ignorance,  consolations  of,  206. 
Impostor,  miserable,  134. 
I.mposture,  appearance  and  words  and, 

130. 
Indecision  a  disquieting  thing,  81. 
Ingratitude,  177. 
Intellect,  its  proper  place.  200. 
Ireland,  ti;e  blind  beggar  in, 91. 
Irish  stew,  how  made.  222. 
Irishman,  the  saying  of  au,  38. 


Judgments  passed  on  imperfect  knowl- 
edge, 216. 

L. 

Labor  not  a  curse,  11. 

Lady,  the  face  of  a  ereat,  7. 

Law,  actinsi  on  the  higher  and  lower,  49 ; 
the  injustices  of,  HO. 

Laws,  elementary,  173  ;  why  obey  them, 
193. 

Legitimist,  a,  56. 

Letter  to  a  man  about  to  marry,  231 ; 
to  a  married  man,  2;i3. 

Life,  the  great  secret  of,  40  ;  what  shall 
a  man  do  with  his,  49,  .^7  ;  treasures  in, 
60 ;  how  spent,  102,  214,  S16 ;  a  series 
of  disillusions,  104;  a  dream,  106;  three 
good  moments  in,  108  ;  the  despairing 
feature  of,  127  ;  object  of,  149,  215  ; 
Iww  we  wear  our,  161 ;  secret  of  success 
in,  166 ;  the  ideal  state  of,  189 ;  ita 
siipertltiity,  210. 

Lisbon,  off  the  rock  of,  245. 

London,  a  real,  27  ;  life  in,  105. 

Londoners  compared  with  North  Sea 
fishermen,  6. 

Love.  di>cussing  it  with  a  fair  one.  96; 
the  thraldom  of  a  new,  117  ;  despised, 
134  ;  falling  into,  142. 

LovEMAKiNG,  79;  its  most  pleasing 
stage,  95. 

Luck  thrust  npon  some,  10. 

M. 

Madrid,  a  play  at  a  theatre  in,  185. 

Magna  Chari  a,  declaration  of,  65. 

Maistre.  Joseph  De,  25. 

Man,  a  real  one— a  miserably  married, 
5,  20 ,  natural,  unnatural,  drowning, 
inconsistent,  17,  18,  22  ;  a  shy,  2b ;  is 
what  others  think  of  him,  121;  con- 
tradictory. 124;  the  ideal,  126,  165  ;  his 
varied  appearances,  147  ;  the  sunerior 
cleverness  of,  165  ;  wanting  something 
to  do,  172. 

Marketing  with  Bill,  115. 

Master's  certificate,  preparing  for,  39. 

Means  and  ends,  218. 


INDEX. 


266 


Men,  leaders  of.  22 ;  great  unknown,  26  ; 
inventions  to  relieve  the  laziness  of, 
64  ;  wise  and  foolish,  72 ;  tvi^o  blind, 
81 ;  extinction  of  the  race  of  real,  128 ; 
all  born  to  special  usea  or  misuses, 
132 ;  self-made,  219, 

Mill.  John  Stuart,  quoted,  6. 

Mind,  strangely  constituted,  9, 19. 

Misery,  the  cause  of  personal,  232. 

Monet,  gaining,  145  ;  changers,  179. 

Moon,  influence  on  the  weather,  (i9. 

Moorish  cafes,  254  ;  women  dancing, 
255. 

Mobnins,  a  lively  sunrise  this,  8. 

Morocco,  judicial  system  of,  853. 

Myself,  an  account  of,  7. 


N. 

Name,  inheriting  a  great.  149. 
Newspapers  the  root  of  all,  88. 
Novelty,  the  curse  of,  175. 


Obsebvation,  the  taking  an,  88,  198  • 

instruction  in  taking  an,  93. 
Ocean,  billows  on  Atlantic,  243. 
Opinions,  the  curse  of  the  world.  111 . 

P. 

Paisley  shawls,  151. 

Palmerston,  Lord,  overrated,  24. 

Parliament,  British,  how  engaged,  38. 

Parson,  a  country,  25. 

People,  barbarous  and  cultured,  20  ;  in 

consistency  of,  174. 
Personality  always  changing,  221. 
PiEUVRB,  a  curious  fish,  78. 
Pilot,  St.  Peter's,  Guernsey,  73. 
Pistols,  objections  to  carrying,  105. 
Place,  winning  a  first,  144. 
Plagiarist,  an  honest.  140. 
Platitude,  an  old  lying.  131. 
Play,  the,  denouement  of,  170. 
Plimsoll  and  Greenwich  hospital,  44. 
Poetry  and  poets,  112. 
Points,  remembrance  of  people  by  their 

worst,  Bl. 
Politics,  the  perpetual  comedy  of,  135. 
PoOK,  the  claims  of  the,  18. 
Port,  how  to  get  in,  229  ;  conditions  of 

getting  out  of,  240. 
Portrait,  when  to  get,  of  one's  self,  836. 
Pray,  who  can,  226. 
Preference,  reason  for,  75. 
Press,  the  power  of,  171. 
Priest  and  the  beggar,  190. 
Prince  of  naval  battles,  28. 
Principle,  salable,  217. 
Progress,  what  is,  149. 
Property,  absolute  in  sea  and  land, 

86. 
Prophecy,  the  gift  of,  not  enviable.  62. 
Providence, law's  of,  45 ;  evidence  of,  68 ; 

ohiect  of,  ix>  making  a  dangerous  coast, 

94.  «        -• 


Queen  of  Sheba  and  mutton  chops,  68. 

R. 

Reason  as  a  guiding  principle,  197  ;  the 
province  of,  227. 

Remembrance  of  a  boyish  love,  5f . 

Reminiscences,  painful,  60. 

Reputation,  the  insecurity  of  an  un- 
challenged, 110 ;  desire  to  have  a  bet- 
ter, 110. 

Romancers  effective  teachers,  64. 

Rulers,  inconsistencies  of,  24. 


B. 

Sabbath-keeper,  71. 

Sah^ing,  power,  diminution  of,  51 ;  di- 
rections for,  188. 

Sailors,  their  outfit  at  Falmouth,  87. 

Sam,  the  sailor,  113. 

Sea,  one  lesson  of,  24 ;  how  to  land  on 
the  beach  in  a  broken,  24 ;  worth  of 
li\-ing  at,  25  ;  occupation  at,  46 ;  mak- 
ing the  best  of  it  at,  48 ;  the  open,  85  ; 
the  weather,  its  uncertainties  at,  92, 
224 :  God  as  seen  in  the,  201 ;  squalls 
at,  257,  258 ;  Mediterranean,  a  swindle, 
259. 

Seafaring,  the  charm  of,  70. 

Seamanship,  examination  in,  41. 

Science,  progress  of,  64 ;  the  only  one, 
141. 

Secrets,  their  importance,  74. 

Self-interest,  8,  223. 

Self-knowledge,  176. 

Sentiments,  false,  168. 

Sex,  restraining  the  female,  120. 

Ship,  the  best  place  to  live  in,  237 ;  noth- 
ing like  a  man's  own,  74. 

Solitude,  223. 

Sports,  legislation  for  athletic,  44. 

Standard,  an  immutable,  invariable, 
21. 

Stab,  steering  a  course  by  a,  35. 

Steam,  and  seamanship,  230. 

Steamer,  and  the  guard-ship-  in  collis- 
ion, 42. 

St.  Malo,  the  character  of.  77  ;  a  breeze 
at,  80 ;  municipal  anthoritiea  of,  83  ; 
leaving,  84. 

Stupidity,  172. 

Suicide,  reflections  on,  103. 

Sunday  a  misrepresented  day,  71. 

Sydney,  Algernon,  176-180. 


T. 

Tansub,  description  of,  251,  256. 

Temptation,  entertaining  a,  43  ;  ex- 
posure to,  150. 

Thames,  regulations  for  traffic  on  the,  34. 

Theories,  vain,  186. 

Thoughts,  the,  impertinence  of  uttering 
one's  own,  192;  the  satisfaction  of 
uttering  one's.  1S3. 


266 


IKDEX. 


Tide,  counting  with  the,  43  ;  allowing 
for  a  spring,  54 ;  out  at  St.  Peter's, 
Guernsey,  74. 

TiTUBs,  their  meaning,  100. 

Tongues,  confusion  of,  174. 

Topsail,  lacing  the,  74. 

ToKRiGiANr,  death  of,  203. 

Trade,  nobody  wUl  learn  a,  46. 

Trifling,  microscopic,  130. 

Troubles,  comparative  insignificance 
of,  42. 

Tbouville,  an  inscription  at,  99. 

Truth,  which  ?  Id9. 

V. 

Virtue,  its  proper  place,  200. 
Voice,  importance  of  a  good,  195. 
Voltaire's  hatred  for  priests,  25. 

W. 

War,  going  to,  11,225. 
Washerwoman,  daughter  of  a,  211. 
Waterford,  reflections  at,  89 ;  the  car- 
driver  at,  90. 


William  the  Conqueror,  one  of  the 
mansions  of,  98. 

Winter,  laid  up  for,  129;  mornings  in, 
143. 

Wisdom,  what  is  it  ?  148 ;  a  bad  pre- 
cept of  worldly,  179. 

Woman,  167  ;  ugly  and  beautiful,  single- 
minded,  fickleness  of,  14,  19,  20,  21 ; 
what  a  man  loves  in,  137  :  the  demon- 
stration that  youllove  a,  157  ;  the  loving 
of  an  ugly,  187  ;  how  to  know  her,  liJ5. 

Women,  English  and  French  contrasted, 
99  ;  craving  attention,  104. 

Words,  idle,  55. 

Work,  how  really  to  do  a,  156 ;  when 
good  is  assured,  170. 

World,  living  at  the  end  of  the,  144 : 
what  it  respects,  171 ;  the,  organized 
for  a  diflferent  set  of  creatures,  11. 


Y. 

Yacht,   a^in  on  the,  184 ,    oflicers  of, 

46  ;  trotibles  on  board  the,  185. 
Yachting  off  Ostend,  213. 


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often  eloquent.    His  pages  afford  golden  suggestions  and  key-thoughts 

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Teachers'  Edition  of  the  Revised  New  Testament. 

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Complete  in  Y  volumes.     First  6  volumes  now  complete. 

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